Our purpose: Improve transfer student success in gateway STEM courses
The “Gateway Alliance Improvement Network” (GAIN) seeks to work across partnerships of 2-year and 4-year institutions to improve STEM success for transfer students. The program aims to achieve equitable graduation rates for transfer students beginning their STEM pathways at 2-year institutions. The Alliance will address systemic and pervasive inequities impacting students, focusing on the lens of faculty as drivers for curricular coherence between 2-year and 4-year institutions.
Using a networked improvement communities (NIC) approach and transfer student capital as a guiding theoretical framework, GAIN will cultivate a system of inter-institutional NICs and faculty learning communities (FLCs) to set and make progress toward shared goals.
Students in STEM degrees who start at 2-year colleges frequently take longer to finish a baccalaureate degree, graduate at lower rates, and have more acquired credits that do not apply toward a degree.
Students who start at 2-year colleges often have fewer socioeconomic resources, exacerbating equity issues.
Our Idea
Faculty are the unit that can best improve student success in gateway courses. Create faculty learning communities among institutions to collectively support STEM students.
