Cornell University
STEM Commitments [White House Summit on College Opportunity, Dec. 2014]
GOAL: Cornell University commits to achieve academic equity across all demographic groups, so that students from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields achieve in and complete STEM degrees at similar rates to majority STEM students.
ACTION PLAN: Cornell University will adapt eight total introductory courses in Physics and Biology and will share their learnings and results through the Center for the Integration of Research on Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) network of 24 colleges and universities as well as through published articles and professional conference 96 presentations. Cornell expects to expand this effort to additional departments and colleges in the coming years.
The introductory Biology courses serve over 1000 students per year at Cornell, and the introductory Physics courses involve about 600. These courses not only serve the Biology and Physics majors, but are key prerequisites in a wide variety of fields in engineering and the life sciences.
As part of its goal, Cornell University aims to see a notable increase in performance and retention among low-income and underrepresented students in these fields. This strategy builds on the success of previous efforts. For example, Cornell’s Biology Scholars program and OADI Research Scholars programs as well as Federal McNair programs are increasing the pipelines of underrepresented students as STEM professionals, and focusing on these STEM gateway courses are significant in this overall strategy. Additionally, for the past year, faculty in Physics and Biology have been working on the curricular revisions and new course designs, and the first of the new courses are coming on line Fall 2014.
Base line data on performance were gathered with attention to gender, race, economic background, first generation, and disability status in all of the targeted courses before the course revision. Involved faculty attended a national institute hosted by AAC&U, and experts in STEM education have also been hosted on campus, with a dedicated staff member from Cornell's Center for Teaching Excellence spending time with faculty and working on additional funding proposals with NSF and other agencies and foundations.
Cornell University is interested not only in the interventions themselves, including a focus on flipped classrooms, collaborative and participatory learning, and peer-led study groups, but also in research on the "second adopters" --those faculty members who are not the main enthusiasts, but come to teach the re-designed courses or become members of the departments after the revisions with experience from institutions where the courses may have been more conventionally taught.