Guiding Underrepresented Students to Opportunities in STEM

The Guiding Underrepresented Students to Opportunities in STEM (GUSTO-STEM) project will recruit, retain, and graduate students from the college's Chemical Technician Program to meet the needs of the local industry. Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) has well equipped facilities and is well connected to local industry, but historically has not prepared sufficient graduates to meet local workforce needs. To recruit more students, the project will work with advisors in the Milwaukee Public Schools and employ a traveling public outreach team to interact directly with prospective students. To improve retention, the project will host a two-week summer bridge/boot camp to help students transition to college. An advisor will be assigned to assist the Chem Tech faculty in purposefully building the new Chem Tech students into a cohort by grouping the new students together in core classes and allowing them to socially interact in a dedicated meeting space. To increase graduation rates, the project will adapt and apply guided pathways to the Chem Tech program that help students complete degrees in a timely fashion. By supporting these students through this rigorous two-year program, the project will offer them the opportunity to make on average, $50,000 per year, with full benefits, while providing them with opportunities to advanced degrees if they return for further study. A broader impact of this project will be to dramatically enhance the economic mobility of students, who typically come from low-income families.

The strategies to be used to increase the number of Chem Tech graduates fall into two categories: enhanced recruiting and improved retention. Recruiting efforts will include collaborations with Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) at nine STEM-focused high schools with whom MATC already has a working relationship. MATC recruiters will work with MPS guidance counselors to steer future students towards the Chem Tech program. The project leaders from MATC will facilitate engaging "STEM Circus" events as public outreach that promotes the Chem Tech program. Cohort building will be encouraged and supported as a retention strategy through a pre-first semester transitional boot camp, small group tutoring sessions, coaching, mentoring, and socializing during formal and informal programming events at MATC and at several industrial partner sites. Having a dedicated learning spaces on campus dedicated to Chem Tech students and the opportunity to share science with the community through the STEM Circuses will promote a learning community that feels connected to the program and the college. In addition to providing Chem Tech students with industry lab field trips, industrial partners have committed to providing these students with critical soft-skills training: developing professionalism, resume writing, interview preparation, and holding mock interviews.