Friday, May 1, 2009

Community colleges tackle tech education with federal help

By Brendan Lynch

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Rapidly evolving technology, low minority and female participation, youth apathy, and the gulf between an associate’s degree and a bachelor’s are straining science, technology, engineering and math education at the community college level. Rather than buckle under, local community colleges are using funds from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health to find new ways to solve their problems.

Middlesex, Bunker Hill, Roxbury, Bristol

In the Merrimack Valley, a $1.4 million NSF grant is funding a program with goals similar to one at UMass Boston (right), the Urban Massachusetts Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (UMLSAMP), at Bunker Hill Community College, Roxbury Community College, Bristol Community College and Middlesex Community College. UMLSAMP, founded in 2006, is run out of the University of Massachusetts Boston, and it aims to help minorities and women get from community colleges to four-year schools through study groups, tutoring and research opportunities.

Middlesex assistant dean of diversity and equity affairs Darcy Orellana said that minority participation in the STEM fields is not where it needs to be. “The intention is to create that pipeline so we have equitable access and equitable outcomes,” Orellana said.

Bunker Hill, Roxbury

According to the NSF, underrepresented minorities (defined as African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans) held 17 percent of U.S. science and engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2006. Minorities made up 11 percent of science and engineering graduate students in 2006 — up from 9 percent in 1996. Underrepresented minorities made up 10 percent of all scientists, engineers and managers in the tech industry in 2006.

“It’s alarmingly low,” said Michael Shiaris, a professor in the UMass Boston biology department.

To remedy that, Shiaris is overseeing the local chapter of the Bridges to Baccalaureate program, funded by just over $400,000 from the NIH. The three-year-old program helps students in biomedical fields at Bunker Hill and Roxbury make the transition from their associate’s degree to their bachelor’s degree. 

During the school year, about 10 students from each school attend seminars and study groups at UMass Boston and receive mentoring and tutoring from minority students at research institutions such as Harvard University Medical School.

 “They’ve been through this themselves and can relate to the students,” Shiaris said.

In the summer, the students work for about $10 to $12 an hour on cancer research at labs in facilities such as the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, on environmental microbiology at Shiaris’ lab, or elsewhere.

“We like them to learn some of the basic molecular tools,” he said.

Thirty-eight students have gone through the program in three years. About half have gone on to four-year schools, and only a couple have dropped out, Shiaris said.

“They’re plenty bright and plenty interested, but they have all kinds of family and money issues, so it can be tough to focus,” he said.

Springfield Technical

Springfield Technical Community College is working under an NSF grant for, among other things, “faculty upscaling,” according to Gordon Snyder, director of the National Center for Information and Communications Technologies at STCC. The ICT is teaching community college educators how to use the latest technologies — voice and video over Internet protocol, WiMax and DOCSIS 3.0 (high speed data transfer over cable) — in the classroom.

“We’re helping them learn the stuff so they can teach it in their classrooms,” Snyder said.

Certification training is another important component of STEM education at community colleges, Snyder said. STCC offers A+ certification as well. The school has partnered with Cisco Systems Inc., Juniper Networks Inc. and VMWare Inc. on certification programs, and the school is talking to EMC Corp. about a similar partnership.

On the down side, such efforts to innovate in STEM education can be stymied by spotty Internet access in rural towns, Snyder said. “Out here in western Mass., there are still towns and parts of towns that don’t have a broadband option,” Snyder said. “We’ve also got students that can’t afford it.”

Community colleges are also struggling to retain students in the STEM fields and overall, Snyder said. He’s keeping an eye on the City University of New York, which is trying to solve the retention problem by requiring interviews before admission and building better support systems for the students.

Still, Snyder said the recession has led to about a 7 percent increase in enrollment at STCC. He said when the economy goes south, people turn to community colleges. 

Northern Essex

At Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, education students are learning how to infuse their curriculums with basic engineering concepts. The ATLAS program is funded by a $740,000 NSF grant administered by the Museum of Science, and it takes the indirect route to increasing engagement in grammar school students. The school is using the funding to add engineering components to NECCO education courses in every subject, not just the sciences, according to Mark Reinhold, assistant professor of natural sciences at Northern Essex. The idea is to convince NECCO students planning to become teachers, and thereby their students, that engineering is something they can do, rather than an abstract idea.

“If you expose teachers to engineering content, they at least have a little familiarity, they’re more comfortable talking about it,” said Reinhold, who has been working on the program for about four years.

ATLAS seeks to teach educators the basic methods that engineering uses to address problems, Reinhold said. In the school’s labs, prospective teachers design a circuit to set off an alarm, for example, or plan the movement of an object from one point to another using simple machines such as levers and ramps.

In addition to Northern Essex, ATLAS is being deployed at Bristol and Holyoke Community College, Fitchburg State College, Bridgewater State College, Westfield State College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Greenfield

At Greenfield Community College, a project called STEM Rays — also funded by the NSF with about $800,000 — is engaging students and teachers in environmental sciences. Greenfield is partnering with UMass Amherst and Smith College on STEM Rays.

Students and teachers in the summer programs will take part in environmental science projects such as testing mercury levels in the local watershed, according to Mary Ellen Fydenkevez, chair of the science department at Greenfield. “The idea is to engage them in, I guess you would it call it, authentic science,” Fydenkevez said.

The main goal of the program is to train teachers to teach students, Fydenkevez said. In a recession, such a program can provide crucial support when school districts are likely not spending money on extras, she said. “You can get professional development without costing districts any money,” she said.

The NSF funding is about to expire, but the program has been picked up by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, Fydenkevez said.

Directory
Massachusetts Community Colleges

Berkshire Community College
1350 West St.
Pittsfield, MA  01201
413-499-4660
admissions@berkshirecc.edu
www.berkshirecc.edu

Bristol Community College
777 Elsbree St.
Fall River, MA  02769
508-678-2811
www.bristolcc.edu

Bunker Hill Community College
250 New Rutherford Ave.
Boston, MA  02129
617-228-2000
www.bhcc.mass.edu

Cape Cod Community College
2240 Iyannough Road
West Barnstable, MA  02668
508-362-2131
info@capecod.edu
www.capecod.edu

Greenfield Community College
One College Drive
Greenfield, MA  01301-9739
413-775-1000
admission@gcc.mass.edu
www.gcc.mass.edu

Holyoke Community College
303 Homestead Ave.
Holyoke, MA  01040
413-538-7000
admissions@hcc.mass.edu
www.hcc.edu

Massachusetts Bay Community College
50 Oakland St.
Wellesley Hills, MA  02481
781-239-3000
Wellesley Hills 781-239-1047
info@massbay.edu
www.massbay.edu

Massasoit Community College
1 Massasoit Blvd.
Brockton, MA 02302
508-588-9100
admoffice@massasoit.mass.edu
www.massasoit.mass.edu

Middlesex Community College
591 Springs Road
Bedford, MA  01730
800-818-3434
Bedford 978-656-3322
admissions@middlesex.mass.edu
www.middlesex.mass.edu

Mt. Wachusett Community College
444 Green St.
Gardner, MA  01440
978-632-6600
admissions@mwcc.mass.edu
www.mwcc.mass.edu

North Shore Community College
1 Ferncroft Rd
Danvers, MA 01923 
978-762-4000
info@northshore.edu
www.northshore.edu

Northern Essex Community College
100 Elliott Way
Haverhill, MA  01830
978-556-3000
www.necc.mass.edu

Quinsigamond Community College
670 West Boylston St.
Worcester, MA  01606
508-853-2300
www.qcc.mass.edu

Roxbury Community College
1234 Columbus Ave.
Boston, MA 02120 
617-427-0060
admissions@rcc.mass.edu
www.rcc.mass.edu

Springfield Technical Community College
One Armory Square
Springfield, MA  01102
413-781-7822
www.stcc.edu

Datapoints
Math doesn’t add up

Most STEM-oriented majors trailed business, education and liberal arts in degrees and certifications issued by Massachusetts public colleges in 2006-07, with only health care cracking the top five.
 

Datapoints
Best in the west

Mass. community colleges recorded a range of scores — with western schools ranking best —
when measured on their students’ credit course completion rate and their four-year overall success rate*.

* Measure of the number of students who earned a degree or certificate, transferred to another school, earned at least 30 credits, or are still enrolled

Source: Massachusetts Department of Higher Education