Susan Martin

Sarah Jewett, executive director of the STEM Transfer Student Success Initiative, and Susan Martin, associate director of the Center for Women in Technology, recently co-wrote a two-part series op-ed for Evolllution about their work developing programs to bridge access to STEM fields, focusing on underserved transfer students.

The first part of the series discussed the STEM Transfer Success Initiative, which creates local institutional partnerships to support the success of students in transition, and the T-SITE Scholars program, which targets talented engineering and computing transfer students who demonstrate financial need.

Sarah Jewett

“These projects illustrate the potential of collaborative relationships to improve academic success, increase retention in STEM majors and decrease time to graduation,” Jewett and Martin wrote.

The second part of the series focused on reflecting on the lessons that were learned during the launch process of the STEM Transfer Student Success Initiative and T-SITE Scholars program.

“Improving the success, retention and graduation rates of transfer students requires institutions to engage in critical self-reflection. Given that transfer students comprise almost half of the student population at UMBC, it was imperative for us to think seriously about how students experienced the transition between institutions, and to adopt new approaches to improve the process,” the authors wrote.

The complete two-part series can be accessed below:

STEM Transfer Success: The Value of Critical Reflection and Shared Responsibility
STEM Transfer Success: Reflecting on Lessons Learned