Background: In response to the effort to increase minority enrollment in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, STEM summer bridge programs were created to help minorities with the transition from high school to college with the long-term goal of increasing the diversity of professionals in STEM. The goal of this…

Partnerships between communities and institutions of higher education have become central ways in which post-secondary students and faculty members interact with teachers and students in community environments. These partnerships can be challenging to develop, however, particularly given the numerous and shifting priorities of both schools and…

The real data on students' postsecondary outcomes are affordable, accessible, and unfortunately underutilized. If harnessed for advising high school students before graduation, these data could significantly change the approach to preparing students for college and career success across the country. How can we get more leaders and stakeholders to…

This article describes the STEM Entrepreneurship Academy, a week-long summer camp that exposes students from the Black Belt region of Alabama to a college campus and opportunities in the STEM disciplines. A unique feature of this program is the entrepreneurial focus on STEM. Students interact with university faculty, staff, and students while…

Retention and graduation rates for engineering disciplines are significantly lower than desired, and research literature offers many possible causes. Engineering learning communities provide the opportunity to study relationships among specific causes and to develop and evaluate activities designed to lessen their impact. This paper details an…

In this article, the authors provide an overview and critically analyze three successful faculty-developed urban K-12 science outreach programs. They consider a successful outreach program as one that has been sustained for at least five years after initial funding, and has provided empirically-based research findings from the program.…

In an effort to reduce the engineering student withdrawal rate due to mathematics, The University of Alabama developed a unique, informal, interactive, and interdisciplinary five-week summer residence program called the Engineering Math Advancement Program (E-MAP). The program aims to increase retention by preparing students to be successful in…

National science assessments and international comparisons indicate that science achievement in the United States is stagnant or declining. Of the many steps needed to improve U.S. science education, the authors write, none is more important than improving teacher training and preparation. Analyses of scores on the National Assessment of…

This article describes and assesses the effectiveness of a 3-yr, laboratory-based summer science program to improve the academic performance of inner-city high school students. The program was designed to gradually introduce such students to increasingly more rigorous laboratory experiences in an attempt to interest them in and model what…