Adelante Tejas (Forward Texas): A Partnership to Improve STEM … · 2014-11-04 · Adelante Tejas (Forward Texas): ... San Antonio has long been a hub for high-tech military installations

San Antonio College/Sul Ross Adelante Tejas, Page 1

Adelante Tejas (Forward T exas): A Partnership to Improve ST E M Education for T exans

V ision

Hispanics and other low-income students must participate in filling the nation’s demand

for a workforce that is skilled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). To

increase the number of these students who attain STEM degrees, and to add to the nation’s

knowledge of best practices in developing successful STEM model transfer and articulation

agreements between two- and four-year Hispanic-Serving Institutions, San Antonio College

(SAC) and Sul Ross State University (Sul Ross) propose the Adelante Tejas (Forward Texas)

project. This innovative partnership – based on each institution’s strengths and the Southwest

and South Central Texas regions’ particular need for STEM expertise in biology and the physical

sciences – will transform STEM instruction and achievement for Hispanic and other

underrepresented students, increase the number of Hispanic and low-income students who major

in STEM fields at each institution, and accelerate STEM students’ time to transfer and degree

completion. To accomplish this, the designers of Adelante Tejas have created a plan that builds

upon on past success and the latest best practices in faculty advising, distance education course

delivery, research- and inquiry-based STEM instruction and STEM student support.

By Fall 2016, 1) Adelante Tejas will establish nine STEM articulation agreements

between SAC and Sul Ross; 2) enrollment in STEM degree programs at each institution will

have increased by 10%; 3) first-time-in-college (FTIC) fulltime fall-to-fall STEM persistence at

each institution will have increased by 5%; 4) SAC’s FTIC STEM major three-year graduation

rate will have increased by 10%; 5) Sul Ross’ FTIC STEM major six-year graduation rate will

have increased by 10%; and 6) the tuition cost burden for STEM students and each institution

will have been reduced through scholarships funded by an endowment.


Overview: San Antonio College and Sul Ross State University

San Antonio College (SA C), founded in 1925, is an urban Hispanic-Serving Institution

(HSI), the largest college of the Alamo Community College District (ACCD), and the largest

single-campus community college in Texas, with 38,175 students enrolled during the 2009-10

fiscal year. According to the March 2010 Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, SAC ranked

22nd nationally in awarding of associate degrees to Hispanics, 10th in enrollment of Hispanics,

and fourth in the nation for its number of Hispanic faculty. The college offers 21 Associate of

Arts, 11 Associate of Science and 59 Associate of Applied Science majors, 114 technical/

academic certificates, and offers 400 continuing education courses to over 8,000 students a year.

SA C Student Demographics: Of 25,269 students enrolled at SAC in fall 2010, 49%

were Hispanic, 6% were African-American, 38% were white and 8% were classified as “other;”

58.3% of students were female, and 71% were part-time. SAC’s fall 2009 CBM report to the

Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) indicated that 38.9% of all students were

academically disadvantaged, and 62.4% were economically disadvantaged. According to

Integrated Post-secondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data, in 2008-09, 43% of students

received financial aid.

SA C Service A rea: SAC is located in the heart of inner-city San Antonio and draws the

majority of its student population from inside the city limits. According to Census data, San

Antonio’s population was 1.32 million in 2010; 63.2% of all residents were Hispanic, 27.4%

were white, 5.6% were African-American and 2.3% were Asian. The city’s Hispanic population

grew by 24% from 2000 to 2010, outpacing the city’s overall population growth by eight percen-

tage points. According to Census estimates for 2009, 15.6% of all families and 19.5% of all

people in the city reported incomes below poverty, compared to 10.5% of all families and 14.3%


of all people in the U.S.; of San Antonio families with children under 18, 21.8% reported

incomes below poverty (16.6% in

U.S.). According to the Texas

Education Agency (2010), in 2009-10,

64% of all students in the city’s 12

largest school districts were eligible

for free lunch or other public

assistance, and 70% were Hispanic.

According to Census estimates for

2009, of San Antonians 25 years and

older, 76.9% had completed less

than a bachelor’s degree.

San Antonio has long been a hub for high-tech military installations and the health care

industry, and the city’s bio-medical, information technology and manufacturing sectors continue

to grow. This has sharpened the focus on STEM education; business, educational and civic

leaders question whether the city has the intellectual capital to support these new industries.

To compound these concerns, San Antonio and the entire South Central Texas region

have experienced explosive population growth in the past 10 years due to the state’s healthy

economy and low cost of living, which has created pressure on limited water resources. City and

state leaders are betting on conservation efforts to alleviate this pressure on the region’s already

stressed water and affordable energy resources. To meet these concerns, SAC seeks to develop

and expand its environmental studies and geology programs, and to initiate coursework that

would lead students into the study of hydrology. In an urban, landlocked campus that lacks

Comparison of SA C and Sul Ross Students, Faculty and Degrees

Characteristics SA C Sul Ross Total Headcount 25,269 2,047* Total Minority 58.4% 63% Total Hispanic 49% 43% Low-income 62.4% 45% Male/Female 58%/42% 47%/53%

Faculty Faculty: Minority (2010) 32% 15%* Faculty: M/F 50%/50% 47%/53%

Degrees O ffered AA/Certification 135 N/A A.S/A.A.S. 71 6 B.A./B.S. 0 41 M.A./M.S. 0 27 Sources: SAC and Sul Ross Offices of Institutional Research and THECB Accountability System * includes graduate students


infrastructure for student research, it is difficult to get students excited about these fields of

study. Sul Ross’ participation in a major research project involving hydrologic resources of the

Rio Grande Basin allows them to offer summer field research experiences and exciting research-

based instruction to SAC students and transfers.

Sul Ross State University: Sul Ross (est. 1917) is a four-year HSI that serves a “minority

majority” student population in rural Alpine, Texas., Sul Ross is the only institution of higher

education (IHE) within a 135-mile radius of Alpine, and an essential educational pathway out of

the low educational attainment and poverty that plague its service area. As a co-educational,

comprehensive, liberal admissions public university accredited by the Southern Association of

Colleges and Schools, Sul Ross offers six certificate and associate degree programs, 41 bachelor’s

and 27 master’s degree programs in teacher education, business, criminal justice and agricultural

and natural resource science fields. The university also has three satellite campuses collectively

known as Rio Grande College. Adelante Tejas addresses identified needs of the Alpine campus.

Sul Ross Student Demographics: Because Sul Ross serves a largely first-generation,

low-income, minority population, the university has worked to develop flexible access to

education and a supportive culture

for working, low-income and/or

Hispanic students who come from

geographically-isolated commu-

nities across Southwest Texas.

This chart clearly articulates the

minority-majority undergraduate

populations at Sul Ross. Socio-economic status is a predictor of academic performance, and

Sul Ross Student Characteristics

Academic Disadvantage : Students testing into developmental reading, writing or math 51.6%

First-Generation-in-College 43% Part-Time, Undergraduate 20% Low-Income AND Minority 31% Low-Income AND Hispanic 25% Firs-Generation AND Minority 31% F irst-Generation A ND H ispanic 25%


minority and low-income students consistently trail their peers in scholastic attainment; over

51% of Sul Ross FTICs test below college-ready in reading, writing and/or math.

Sul Ross Service A rea: The Sul Ross Alpine campus serves the Trans-Pecos region, a vast,

sparsely populated, 18-county, 46,441 square mile area of Southwest Texas bordering Mexico. In

five of the 18 Sul Ross Alpine service area counties, the Hispanic population exceeds 70%.

Poverty is high, education levels are low, and economic security is scarce. For the 23-county

U.S./Mexico border area surrounding Sul Ross campuses in Del Rio, Uvalde, Eagle Pass and

Alpine, the THECB projects the population will increase 28% to 900,017 by 2015; the 15-34 age

group will grow by 36.5%, and the Hispanic population will grow from 81% to 87%. Since the

area leads the state in the percentage of students remaining in region for higher education, Sul

Ross’ targeted enrollment growth by 2015 is 8,000.

Like San Antonio, the projected population growth in Southwest Texas will place added

stress on the region’s extremely delicate water supply and natural respources. And as the Trans

Pecos region and state’s population continues to grow, so does its need for affordable energy. Sul

Ross is located approximately 152 miles south of the Permian Basin, which holds one of the

world’s largest deposits of oil and natural gas. West Texas Intermediate crude is used as a

benchmark for worldwide oil pricing, and production is still booming at millions of barrels of oil

and cubic feet of natural gas per day. Without a high number of STEM graduates, the effort to

ensure responsible, efficient harvesting of the region’s natural resources will suffer.

To confound these concerns, the isolated nature of the Trans Pecos region and high poverty

among its residents defeats many educational and career ambitions for the students Sul Ross

serves, especially Hispanics. 2009 Census data shows that only 15.7% of residents in Sul Ross

18-county service area have a bachelor’s degree or higher. In over 50% of Sul Ross service area


counties, individual poverty rates exceed state (16.8%) and national (13.5%) averages which are

at historic highs. Additionally, a Fall 2009 campus survey showed that over 25% of Sul Ross

students grew up in a household where English was not the primary language, which impedes

their ability to comprehend, perform and communicate at the college level and leads to low

academic performance, delays to graduation, and dropout. Since four-year IHEs in Texas are

prohibited by statute from providing ESL classes using state funds, the only way to serve them is

with tutors.

As the chart above illustrates, lifetime educational achievement in the Sul Ross and San

Antonio service regions is low, a consequence of the fact that a large proportion of our student

populations are Hispanic, low-income and/or first-generation-in-college (FGIC).

N E E D F O R T H E PR OJE C T

a. The magnitude of the needs for the services to be provided or the activities to be carried out by the proposed project: Without human resources to fill high-quality, knowledge-intensive jobs and drive innov-

ative enterprises that lead to discovery and new technology, our economy will suffer and the U.S.

will face a lower standard of living (National Academy of Sciences, 2007). Nationwide, science

Educational A ttainment for the Population 25 Years and Over

SA C Sul Ross Educational A ttainment

U .S.* San Antonio MSA*

H ispanics in Bexar

County*

Residents of San Antonio

ISD**

Residents 18- county service

area Less than High School diploma 14.8% 20.7% 29.48% 35.1%

31.1%

High School Graduate1 28.5% 24.8% 27.6% 32.1% 25.4% Some College-no degree 21.3% 24.9% 23.8% 17.2% 21.9% Associate's Degree 7.5% 6.5% 6.3% 4.8% 4.8% Bachelor's Deg & higher 27.9% 23.1% 12.7% 10.68% 16.8% Source: *US Census, 2010 American Community Survey estimates 1 Includes GED

**US Census, American Community Survey 2008


and engineering occupations are projected to increase by an average of 16% from 2008-2018,

compared to a 10% increase for all occupations (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009). During that

time, employers are expected to hire about 2.5 million STEM workers (Terrell, 2007). Future

U .S. global competitiveness and security demands a well-educated ST E M workforce.

Unfortunately, only 12% of degrees/certificates awarded in Texas in 2008-09 were in

STEM fields, down from 14.7% in 200-01 (IPEDS). The declared STEM majors in the chart

below represent less than 10% of SAC’s total enrollment:

Characteristics of SA C ST E M Students 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 STEM majors1 3,220 2,922 2,913 3,364 3,753 4,473 % of STEM majors retained2 65% 65% 66% 68% 69% 71% STEM graduates 101 88 80 79 100 185 % of STEM majors that are Hispanic

not available

n/a n/a n/a 44%

33%

Annual average of potential STEM transfers3

66

1STEM majors include Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Computer Information Sciences and Support Services, Engineering, Engineering Technology and related fields, Mathematics and Statistics, and the Physical Sciences, which includes Chemistry, Geology and Physics. 2 Annual average fall-to-spring persistence rate (AY 2004-2010). 3 Annual average number of STEM students who completed a minimum of 27 transferable college hours (AY 2004-2010).

According to the 2005 Survey of the American Freshman, although approximately one-

third of all incoming freshmen traditionally contemplate a major in a science and engineering

field, half of all students nationwide who begin in the physical or biological sciences and 60% of

those in math will drop out of these fields by their senior year, compared with only 30%in the

humanities and social sciences.

With the 11th-largest economy in the world, and an unemployment rate of 8%, Texas has

many opportunities for Hispanics and low income students to find work in STEM career (Texas

Comptroller, 2010). Texas has weathered blows to the national economy since 2008 better than

other states, which has attracted many who have fled from joblessness and foreclosure. Texas


Workforce Commission statistics for the Alamo Workforce Development Area — a geographic

region that encompasses San Antonio, Bexar County and 11 surrounding counties — show a

25% increase in employment demand for engineers from 2006-2016; a 38.6% increase for

computer systems designers; a 31.6% increase for management, scientific and technical

consulting; and a 11.9% increase in demand for scientific research and development jobs. Owing

primarily to increases in the energy and natural sciences sector, employment growth in Sul Ross’

proximate Upper and Lower Rio Grande WDAs is estimated at a comparatively robust 14.2%.

STEM workers are in high demand to support the state’s economy, but according to the THECB

2010 “Progress Report,” T exas I H Es have to more than double thei r numbers of ST E M

degrees in the next six years to meet statewide goals.

However, it appears that our minority-serving IHEs are not moving fast enough to solve

this problem. An analysis of STEM degrees conducted by Sul Ross for 2004-2010 revealed that

over 66% of entering Sul Ross f reshmen who declare a ST E M major either transfer out of

the degree, stop out or drop out completely. THECB data shows that, in 2009, “critical field

degrees” identified for Texas’ Closing the Gaps initiative, including computer science, math,

engineering and physical sciences only accounted for about 8.1% of total degrees awarded by

the Alamo Community Colleges. Although over 1,200 SA C students declare ST E M majors

(non-medical) each year , only 179 graduated with a ST E M degree or certificate in 2009-10.

Progression to any four-year degree is an unmet national challenge. In its December 2010

report on six-year persistence and attainment rates for postsecondary students, the National

Clearinghouse on Education Statics (NCES) found that, among 2003-04 students who first

enrolled in a public two-year I H E , only 8% had received a certificate, 14% had received an

associate’s degree, and 12% had received a bachelor’s degree within six years from any IHE.


Another 20% were still enrolled in college and 46% had not received a degree and were not

enrolled at any I H E . Among 2003–04 beginning students at 4-year I H Es, 58% had received a

bachelor’s degree, 5% had received an associate’s degree, and 2% had received a certificate

within six years from any IHE. An additional 12% were still enrolled at an IHE and 24% had

not received a degree and were not enrolled at any I H E .

Hispanics comprise the largest undergraduate ethnic group at both SA C (49%) and

Sul Ross (45%). Therefore, progression to degree and attrition for Hispanics are deep concerns.

According to the NCES study, 46% of two-year Hispanic students had left their first institution

and never enrolled in another IHE after six years, and 23.5% of four-year Hispanics had left their

first institution and never enrolled at another, more than any other ethnic group.

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoc-

torates in Science and Engineering found that, in 2008, among STEM graduate students in the

U.S. who were U.S. citizens or permanent residents, only 5.35% were African-American and

only 4.98% were H ispanic, although these groups accounted for 12.8% and 15.4% of the U.S.

population, respectively. Dowd, et al (2010), who did an analysis of a 2003 NSF survey, found

that “HSIs are considerably behind non-HSIs in terms of awarding bachelor’s degrees to Latinos

in the biological, agricultural, and environmental sciences (3% as opposed to 11%).”

The disproportionately low participation of Hispanics in STEM fields is attributable to

National, SA C and Sul Ross Degree A ttainment and A ttrition US 2-yr SA C US 4-Y r Sul Ross A ll students 6-year completion, (2004-2009) all degrees or certifications 34% 15.2% 65% 39.9%

Hispanics 6-year completion, (2004-2009) all degrees or certifications 17.3% n/a 39.4% 42.1%

Sources: National Clearinghouse on Education Statics (NCES), December 2010; SAC and Sul Ross Data from THECB Accountability System


cultural barriers (social expectations for different groups), structural barriers (historical laws and

regulations that barred entry into education and employment), and institutional barriers

(discriminatory policies and practices) (Tsui, 2007). In its 2007 publication, VOCES: A profile

of Today’s Latino College Students, Excelencia in Education! found, through focus groups and

interviews, that Hispanic students indicated proximity to home and work as a major factor in the

college selection process. The reality is that more than any other group, Latino students prefer

(and in many cases have no choice but) to remain close to their home while attending college.

In addition, Jorge Chapa of Indiana University noted in his 2006 presentation titled, “The

Problematic Pipeline” that “miscommunication and misunderstanding regarding prerequisites

for majors, degrees, and transfers” resulted in a

“leaky pipeline, where graduate degree

recipients from the nation’s colleges and

universities do not reflect the racial and ethnic

diversity of the population”.

The authors of a 2010 report from the Center for Urban Education argue that achievement

gaps for Hispanic students in STEM fields are also linked to students' finances. Hispanic students

are more likely to come from low-income backgrounds and “disproportionately start their college

educations at community colleges and Hispanic-serving four-year colleges, which typically have

lower costs” but have fewer resources, and are “less equipped to support students and to prepare

them for graduate work" (Malcolm, et al, 2010). The CUE report recommends using federal

STEM education funds to increase research opportunities at community colleges and HSIs

by incorporating research experiences into the core curriculum.

Nichols, et al, examining federal data on 11,000 student records from eighth grade

" ...one of the issues is the lack of faculty to advise during the weeks before the semester when we need to register for the next semester. If we need to register and the faculty are on vacation break, so we go to the secretaries. " STEM student focus group, Sul Ross, 2011


through final educational outcomes, found that approximately half of students who earned a

STEM-related or non-STEM degree would have been candidates to pursue a STEM degree. The

third of three recommendations they made based on their findings was that the U.S. “work to

reduce the number of capable college students who, because of academic difficulties or

waning interest, switch from STEM to other majors” (Besterfield-Sacre, et al, 2010).

These studies point to the fact that Hispanic ST E M students need expert guidance in

order to achieve success in college, but that lower funding at HSIs means that academic and

career advisement is often less comprehensive and/or less available than at non-HSIs.

b. The extent to which specific gaps or weaknesses in services, infrastructure or opportunities have been identified and will be addressed by the proposed project, including the nature and magnitude of those gaps or weaknesses:

Adelante Tejas will address programmatic and instrumentation deficiencies at both HSIs,

and equally importantly, will create sustainable opportunities to catalyze STEM student

engagement and improve their preparation for advanced study. Before this is possible, however,

pronounced achievement gaps must be addressed.

In designing the Adelante Tejas project, gaps in services, infrastructure and opportunities

were intensively analyzed by the deans and chairs of STEM education at both SAC and Sul

Ross. Several group discussions were conducted via videoconferencing. Participants included

deans, department chairs/coordinators and representative faculty for biology, geology, chemistry,

geographic information systems (GIS), mathematics and teacher education at both schools, and

physics and engineering at SAC. The group discussed opportunities and challenges that have

come from the expansion of STEM-related careers and lack of qualified workers to fill positions,

and the fact that our Hispanic students, who tend to be from low socioeconomic backgrounds,

are underprepared for success in STEM academic careers. The group recognized that Hispanic


and underrepresented students are not progressing to graduation at the same pace as their non-

Hispanic, higher-income peers and expressed distress that the proportion of STEM degrees

awarded at our institutions to Hispanics is lower than their proportion in our campus populations,

even though both IHEs have programs in place to assist Hispanic and disadvantaged students.

Gaps in services and infrastructure are widening at both schools because of reductions

in state funds due to the recession. Neither institution is able to upgrade STEM equipment,

instrumentation and technology that is crucial to preparing students for today’s STEM workplace

and both have fewer tutors to assist a growing number of students. This is occurring while our

enrollments are rising and opportunities for our students in STEM fields are increasing.

San Antonio College’s gaps and weaknesses in services, infrastructure or opportunities:

While university data indicate that SAC students who transfer to four-year IHEs perform

as well as or better than peers who started at the universities, and success rates have improved

over the last four years, SAC students still experience gaps in: 1) course completion and

productive grade rates, especially in developmental and gatekeeper courses; 2) year-to-year

retention; and 3) graduation and transfer rates, especially for at-risk underprepared students.

According to THECB, in academic year (AY) 2009-2010, course completion rates for

SAC students had risen to 83.2%, but, despite improvement, the productive grade rate (A , B

and C’s) was still only 65.5% ; fall-to-fall retention was 58.4%. The three-year graduation

rate for SA C students, according to THECB calculations, was 3.9% in 2009, and the transfer

rate to T exas senior I H Es was only 19.8% . By 2009, 6% of students who had started at

SAC six years earlier had their associate’s degree, and 7.5% had their bachelor’s degree.

SAC’s achievement of “critical degrees and certificates” in the areas of computer science,

engineering, math and physical science had risen from 88 in FY 2008 to 179 in FY 2010, but this


represented only 18% of the 1,012 students who declared a non-medical STEM major in 2007.

Gaps or Weaknesses in SA C Services: While faculty at SAC have generally embraced

the use of technology in the classroom and the development of distance education options, and

have implemented many new best practices in instruction in the classroom, several weaknesses

have been identified related to services provided by faculty. SAC’s 2010 Community College

Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) indicates that faculty-student interaction and active/

collaborative learning are too low at SAC. Administrators, faculty and staff agree that students

are not getting enough and/or appropriate advising and that faculty need more and/or

better training in ways to help increase the success of at-risk students.

These weaknesses contribute to the following: while Hispanics comprised 60.5% of

3,861 F T I Cs at SA C in Fall 2009, only 45.5% of 20,274 students with previous college

experience at SAC were Hispanic (IPEDS, 2010), an indication that SA C loses a

disproportionate number of H ispanics during thei r first semester .

Gaps or Weaknesses in SA C Infrastructure: One of the greatest weaknesses in STEM

education at SAC is one that is common to all community colleges; the overwhelming majority

SA C ST E M Degrees/C ertificates 2009-2010 ST E M F ield H ispanic O ther Minority/

International SA C White

non-H ispanic Total

Computer Science/ Computer

Information Systems

39 10 35 84

Engineering (AS) 10 3 6 19 L ife Sciences (AS) 1 0 1 2 Physical Sciences

(AS) 16 4 7 27

T echnology 30 4 13 47 Total 96 21 62 179

Source: SAC Unit Review - RFA719_2001_2010 (11/30/2010)


of faculty do not perform STEM research and therefore have little opportunity to expose students

to real-world applications of STEM. Since the problem is structural, community colleges must

provide this opportunity through partnerships with universities or other entities, or through

special programs created for that purpose. Most of SAC’s STEM courses offer minimal hands-on

experiences, except in laboratories, which are not always required. SA C undergraduates have

little or no exposure to research, with the exception of approximately 20 students each year

who have participated in NASA- or NSF-sponsored activities/internships.

A second serious gap in infrastructure comes from state budgetary cuts and decreased

local tax income. This has forced SAC to cut back on ST E M tutors significantly, ST E M lab

consumable supplies are always at the bare minimum, and educational materials are

meager . The college’s MathSpace, MESA Center and BioSpot STEM study centers have relied

entirely on donations and grant funds to furbish them with furniture, computers, learning

technology and educational materials. These STEM study centers lack items that could help

students master course material. The college’s GIS computer laboratory (the GeoSpot) – where

GIS, Earth sciences and chemistry students gather to study – has fewer tutors to assist a growing

number of students and is open for students to use less than six hours a day.

Gaps or Weaknesses in SA C Opportunities: SAC’s participation in the Lumina

Foundation Achieving the Dream project has led to a strong “culture of evidence” on our

campus, where data-driven decisions have instigated major changes. However, despite this

opportunity, the college has not yet achieved true data-based decision-making for specific

ST E M disciplines, nor for low-income and/or H ispanic students. For instance, we do not

currently collect data on income or first-generation status for all students. In order to improve

student success, SAC needs to collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data on


student persistence graduation and transfer in STEM fields to identify bottlenecks in the

pathway Hispanic and low-income students take to graduation or transfer .

Another missed opportunity is in utilizing SAC’s considerable expertise in distance

education modalities to improve STEM course delivery. SAC was one of the first schools in the

country to have an entire associate’s degree online, and is now the sixth-largest provider of

online education in the nation. While most SAC liberal arts courses are now offered online, few

science courses have been virtualized, limiting access for working or distant ST E M majors.

Gaps or Weaknesses in Services, Infrastructure or Opportunities at Sul Ross:

Students arrive on the Sul Ross campus academically, socially and motivationally

underprepared for college, with unclear academic and career goals. The university has made

great strides in recent years to create a physically and programmatically student-centered culture,

yet significant gaps and weaknesses in services, infrastructure and opportunities persist. These

deficiencies include: 1) diminishing resources for support for academically underprepared

students; 2) constrained in-department STEM advising and coursework; 3) the absence of critical

analytical and STEM instruction facilities and technology necessary for a high quality STEM

education; 4) a lack of linkages to meaningful student research opportunities in a mentored

context that lead to successful academic and professional futures; and 5) scarce resources for

faculty development to participate in professional learning leading to STEM teaching excellence.

2004-2010 Analysis of ST E M and Other Degrees Awarded Sul Ross State University

04-05 05-06 06-07 07-08 08-09 09-10 Degrees Awarded 210 171 178 220 191 176 All STEM 41 20% 33 19% 37 21% 45 20% 32 17% 45 26% Hispanic STEM 10 5% 14 8% 20 11% 9 4% 9 5% 11 6% Minority STEM 13 14% 16 9% 22 12% 10 5% 10 5% 11 6% Female STEM 30 14% 26 15% 21 12% 26 12% 13 7% 22 13% Hispanic Female STEM

9 4% 10 6% 11 6% 5 2% 3 2% 6 3%


According to THECB, in FY 2009, the six-year graduation rate for Sul Ross students was

39.9% overall and 42.1% for Hispanics. This is encouraging data, because it confirms an

upward trend in persistence and graduation rates attributable to successful F irst-Year and

Second-Year Experience initiatives (T RI O Student Support Services and the “Lobo Den”).

Unfortunately, production of STEM degrees within that number is weak. From 2004-2010, the

achievement of “critical degrees and certificates” in the areas of computer science,

engineering, math and physical science averaged only 20.5% of total degrees awarded. For

H ispanics, the rate was only 6.5% . A critical analysis of conditions in STEM departments by

faculty, students, administrators and external experts identified the following weaknesses:

Gaps or Weaknesses in Sul Ross Services: Although special programs like SSS and the

Lobo Den have made significant strides toward creating a safe, multicultural, student-centered

campus environment and generating increased retention among freshman and sophomore

students, STEM degree persistence and graduation remains disproportionately low, especially for

Hispanics and low-income students. Several gaps in services impede student progress: 1)

diminished resources for remedial and developmental tutoring and support as a result of

Texas budget cuts mean that Hispanic and low-income students who have a greater tendency to

be academically underprepared for college-level work will not have the assistance and tutoring

required to succeed in college, 2) shortages of available in-department academic/career

advising – at the April 2010 STEM chairs meeting, STEM chairs and faculty expressed strident

concern that students are not getting enough and/or appropriate advising to complete thei r

degrees, and are opting for less rigorous General Studies degrees; 3) due to budget and faculty

constraints, GIS and basic analytical methods courses are completely unavailable. The

unavailability of courses combined with advising gaps and faulty course progression results in


critical knowledge gaps, delays to graduation and lowered marketability of the attained degree.

Gaps in advising, key courses, laboratory facilities and the correlative analytical and technical

skills disadvantage Sul Ross graduates for future academic and professional careers.

Gaps or Weaknesses in Sul Ross Infrastructure: One of Sul Ross President Dr.

Ricardo Maestas’ four immediate goals for increasing overall educational quality promotes

research as an educational platform. Dr. Maestas and Sul Ross STEM faculty recognize that Sul

Ross’ capacity to obtain research grants and the credibility of its degree are severely diminished

by a lack of rigorous analytical equipment that is commonplace at other Texas universities.

Lack of access to state-of-the-art laboratory equipment, trained faculty and technical support

personnel and instruction in basic analytical methods puts Sul Ross STEM graduates at a serious

competitive disadvantage. Analytical instrumentation lacking at Sul Ross that can be

utilized across multiple disciplines includes: 1) The analytical scanning electron microscope

(SEM); 2) X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF); and 3) The x-ray diffractometer (XRD).

These instruments will permit students and faculty to quickly conduct laboratory analysis of

field-collected samples, which decreases time delays, eliminates sample shipping costs and

inconvenience, and accelerates discovery. Without this equipment, Sul Ross cannot expect to

attract, inspire and retain serious students. Furthermore, without the instruments faculty are

limited to theoretical, textbook or virtual illustrations in their instruction, and research capacity is

stalled. Worse, students who attend Sul Ross are at a disadvantage for having elected to remain

at a rural IHE, even though opportunities for their field studies are unparalleled. The next-nearest

instrumentation of this standard is in El Paso, Texas, 225 miles away.

Another infrastructural gap at Sul Ross has resulted from the university’s increased

demand for distance education, which enables students and faculty to interact in real time or


asynchronously on campus or remotely. Sul Ross currently delivers over 20 STEM courses

(biology, geology, mathematics and chemistry) in real time each semester to students at Midland

College and El Paso Community College District via seven interactive video classrooms, and

laboratories are conducted at distance sites using local faculty and/or by traveling to the sites.

Distance education delivery to high school campuses located in both Educational Service Areas

(ESA) 10 and 18 has increased fourfold in the past two years.

However, as a result of increased real-time distance education delivery, technical and

practical problems with distance education-capable classrooms are increasing. Distance

education-capable classrooms can only serve one time slot at a time, and competition for high-

demand schedule slots is fierce. New distance education programs and outreach are constrained

by the limits of the university’s technological and physical capacity, and traditional distance

education-capable classrooms each cost an average of $88,000 for installation, require

technology specialists to troubleshoot issues and have ongoing maintenance and equipment

failure expenses. Failures of one or more aspects of the transmission (audio, visual, document

imagery) during course delivery leads to instructor and student frustration.

As part of Adelante Tejas, Sul Ross proposes to acquire more flexible, portable

technology to replace or supplement traditional videoconferencing in delivering ST E M

distance education and provide faculty professional development to support their stated

objectives of using technology to strengthen mentoring. Fixed-in-room videoconferencing

technology is becoming increasingly obsolete in the face of free or low-cost teleconferencing

products such as Skype, Go to Meeting or Adobe Connect. Without an increase in distance

education delivery capacity via these new mediums and via online coursework, Sul Ross will be

unable to expand program and course offerings in STEM.


Gaps or Weaknesses in Sul Ross Opportunities: The rural, undeveloped nature of the

far Southwest Texas border region – represented primarily by large, privately held or state,

national and international park and conservation areas – is a field scientist’s research “nirvana.”

Biologists and geologists from around the world recognize the Chihuahuan desert in Southwest

Texas for its wealth of biodiversity and stunning geologic features. However, without the oppor-

tunity to acquire interest, confidence and appreciation for science through field studies in this

outdoor laboratory, SAC and Sul Ross students may never realize participation in STEM careers.

Implications of Failure to Address Identified Gaps and W eaknesses:

Without the resources with which to expand STEM course offerings and delivery

methods, improve the quality of those offerings, and better support STEM students, both HSI’s

will fail to maximize individual and shared resources for the benefit of each region’s Hispanic,

disadvantaged, academically underrepresented and low-income residents. We will continue to

witness low educational attainment and high poverty in our regions, despite great human capital

and untapped potential in our service areas.

Addressing Gaps and W eaknesses through Partnership

The complementary differences between institutions make the proposed project

poignantly attractive to each. Sul Ross is a small, rural institution with less than 2,000 students

that is one of the state’s most underutilized four-year institutions, despite recognized programs in

natural sciences and unparalleled opportunities for field studies. By contrast, SAC is a large

urban institution with more than 25,000 students that is surrounded by an aging inner city core.

SAC has learned from bitter experience how difficult it is to create an intimate, nurturing

atmosphere at a large, urban school with no on-campus residential facilities. SAC has been

successful at creating localized “nests” for students on campus, but many potential SAC transfer


students still view upper-division, four-year institutions as mystifyingly large and impersonal, or

exclusive, small and unaffordable. Sul Ross can offer SAC students the opportunity to attain a

four-year STEM degree at an affordable cost through distance education delivery. Through

Adelante Tejas, Sul Ross will offer upper-division coursework in biology and geology at SAC

via distance education and Internet-supported modalities, which will allow SAC students to

remain close to home, family and employment while progressing toward their academic goals.

Increased distance education STEM course delivery will also benefit Sul Ross students who are

scattered throughout a sprawling, sparsely populated rural landscape. Through common

professional development activities, SAC and Sul Ross will share best practices in distance

education, and faculty will create/enhance courses to help prepare students for STEM careers.

Furthermore, Sul Ross can serve SAC transfer students in a supportive atmosphere that

values the challenges Hispanic and low-income students face on their path to a four-year degree.

Supportive elements include small class size (fewer than 20), learning communities and an

ethnically diverse campus which is the fourth least-expensive public four-year institution in

Texas. In addition to a safe and welcoming transfer destination, Sul Ross also offers the potential

for excellent field and research opportunities, something which SAC is unable to manage

because of its urban setting and its focus on teaching rather than research.

Adelante Tejas will provide professional development opportunities for SAC and Sul

Ross STEM faculty to learn best practices in advising STEM students from diverse backgrounds,

a major factor in encouraging persistence toward timely degree completion. The creation of nine

clearly articulated STEM degree plans will expand the variety of attractive options for SAC

students who wish to continue their studies at a four-year IHE.

Adelante Tejas will allow Sul Ross to strengthen its STEM instructional facilities with


laboratory equipment upgrades, courses, technology and best practices advising methods, which

will increase undergraduates’ exposure to up-to-date scientific methods and practices that are

proven to increase STEM student retention and success. SAC students will be exposed to the

equipment in upper-division STEM laboratories delivered by Sul Ross using conferencing

software or in person, which will heighten their interest in STEM and prepare them for transfer.

Adelante Tejas also will provide funding for both institutions to vastly improve STEM

student support. Nine STEM articulation agreements will be developed and promoted; STEM

faculty advising will be improved through training and paid pre-term advising; tutoring hours

will be increased for math, geology and engineering; STEM faculty from both institutions will

collaborate to revise and update curricula in line with best practices for student engagement and

success; and students at our HSIs will be provided with opportunities to experience field study,

practice research in the classroom and form budding communities of practice among themselves.

b. The extent to which the proposed project will provide services or otherwise address the needs of students at r isk of educational failure.

Low graduation and transfer rates at SAC and diminished STEM degree attainment at Sul

Ross arise from inadequate educational preparation and prevailing language barriers. According

to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), nine of San Antonio’s 15 school districts ranked below

state averages for student mastery of 2006-2007 accountability standards in math and science.

TEA reports show that only 46% of 2009 high school students in Education Service Center

Region 20 (South Central Texas), tested at college-ready for English and math. Upon entry into

SAC 71.9% of all Fall 2009 FTIC students were enrolled in one or more developmental courses.


Coming from backgrounds where higher educational attainment is rare, it is not

surprising that, at Sul Ross, the average fall-to-fall retention rate for the past five years was less

than 50% and the six-year graduation rate for the cohorts of 2003-2007 was less than 20%. In a

2004-2010 time-to-degree analysis of STEM enrollment conducted this year, Sul Ross learned

that of 39% of Hispanics who declared a STEM degree, only 7% graduated with a STEM degree

in 6 years. However, there is some good news: In the same study we learned that enrollment

by H ispanics in ST E M is trending upward and completion of ST E M degrees by females is

56% . This project will address the lack of academic preparation through increased tutoring,

more and improved faculty advising, and instruction that takes into account the

backgrounds of H ispanic and low-income students. It will also increase the number of

underprepared students who remain engaged in ST E M , participate in ST E M clubs and are

exposed to research and hands-on, inquiry- or research-based instruction.

c. The extent to which the proposed project will focus on serving or otherwise

addressing the need of disadvantaged individuals.

We have described the economic disadvantage of students at both of our HSIs at length

above. Although SAC’s tuition and fees are low – for 2009 in-state costs were only $4,396 a year

– 48% of Fall 2009 SAC students received need-based financial aid. At Sul Ross, while tuition

is among the lowest in the state, over 43% of Sul Ross students receive need-based financial aid.

Institutional FASFA data states that 40% of SAC students and 43% of Sul Ross students are

Number of Students Taking Developmental Courses at SA C & Sul Ross English Mathematics Reading # Students % A,B,C # Students % A,B,C # Students % A,B,C

SA C* 849 62% 1,907 46% 986 75% Sul Ross** 139 49% 578 51% 97 34%

*Source: ACCD Institutional Research and E ffectiveness Services, Spring 2010 **SRSU Academic Center for Excellence, AY2009-2010.


first-generation-in-college; however, this information is not collected from every student,

therefore the first generation population may be even higher. As we have indicated above,

SAC’s three-year graduation rate was 3.9% in 2009, and the transfer rate to Texas senior

institutions was only 19.8%; Sul Ross’ six-year gradation rate was 42.1% for Hispanics in 2010.

This is consistent with Ishitani’s (2006) findings that first generation students – after

controlling for race, gender , grade point average and income – are 51% less likely to

graduate in four years than second-generation students. They also have a 71% higher rate

of attrition than second-generation students between the first and second years (Ishtani, 2003)

Clearly we must develop and implement strategies that will mitigate the gaps and

weaknesses outlined above and diminish the STEM performance gap for Hispanic, low-income

and other underrepresented students. By significantly increasing academic quality, improving

instrumentation and technological resources and investing in faculty development that will

increase instructional quality and advising, Adelante Tejas will directly impact student

populations which are predominantly Hispanic, low-income and otherwise disadvantaged.

Needs and Services for Adelante Tejas

Needs of SA C/Sul Ross H ispanic, Low-

Income and Otherwise Under represented Students

Adelante Tejas Services to address Needs

Very high rates of first-generation, low-income and Hispanic students

Low levels of academic preparation Low rates of retention, graduation, transfer STEM students need faculty advising, supportive social culture to persist

Low-income students need financial aid Students at resource-poor HSIs need research experience for retention/success

Hispanics reluctant to leave home Cost of education is a barrier

Faculty trained in advising diverse students & compensated for pre-term advising

Improve instrumentation at Sul Ross, that will be shared w/ SAC students; faculty improve research/inquiry-based instruction

Promote student STEM club engagement Improve STEM learning centers at SAC Faculty trained in STEM best practices Students exposed to research experiences Students can transfer “virtually” to Sul Ross or in-person to a safe, diverse campus


Q U A L I T Y O F T H E PR OJE C T D ESI G N

The goal and objectives of Adelante Tejas respond to both of the STEM and Articulation

Program Competitive Preference Priorities: 1) to increase the number of Hispanic and other low-

income students earning STEM degrees; and 2) to develop model transfer and articulation

agreements between two-year Hispanic-Serving Institutions and four-year institutions in STEM

fields. The partnership will address programmatic, academic, student support and

instrumentation deficiencies at both institutions, and will share access to research opportunities

in order to promote student academic engagement, retention and degree completion.

In designing the Adelante Tejas project, deans and STEM chairs and faculty at both

institutions, conducted several group sessions via video conference to discuss strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities and gaps in their respective departments. STEM deans, chairs,

coordinators and representative biology, geology, chemistry, geographic information systems

(GIS), math, physics and teacher education faculty at both schools, and engineering faculty at

SAC exchanged views about shared assets and needs for Adelante Tejas. Measurable goals,

objectives and outcomes were then specified, and later re-worked through an iterative process.

Note that the measures of the project objectives above are designed to collect, analyze

and use high-quality and timely data – including data on improving postsecondary

student outcomes relating to enrollment, persistence, completion and industry readiness – in

order to enable data-based decision-making at SAC and Sul Ross.

(i) The extent to which the goals, objectives, and outcomes to be achieved by the

proposed project are clearly specified and measurable.

Goal: to increase ST E M enrollment, retention, transfer and graduation for H ispanic and low- income students at San Antonio College and Sul Ross State University through improved access to high quality ST E M education and improved educational quality and student support, particularly in Biology and Physical Sciences.


Major Objectives in measurable terms

Performance Indicators/Benchmarks

Objective 1: To establish nine (9) STEM articulation agreements between Sul Ross and SAC. Addresses need to increase 2-to-4-year transfer rates for Hispanic/low-income students

By March 30, 2012, SAC and Sul Ross faculty in Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Physics/Physical Science, Natural Resource Management, Computer Science, Mathematics and STEM Education will have met, in-person or virtually, and begun drafting articulation agreements. By July 31, 2013, at least 3 articulation agreements will be signed. By F all 2015, at least 7 articulation agreements will be signed. By Spring 2016, 9 articulation agreements will be signed.

Objective 2: To increase by at least 50% the numbers of students at SAC and Sul Ross who can access STEM coursework in online, hybrid or other distance education formats over a baseline established in Spring 2011. Addresses need for STEM course availability, time to graduation, high rates of working students at Sul Ross and SAC

By Spring 2013, 20 courses in geology, biology, chemistry, physics, natural resource management or other STEM programs at SAC/SR will be revised for hybrid/Internet/real-time distance delivery By Spring, 2013, SAC will be offering a GIS course each year via distance education to 15 Sul Ross students. By December 2013, 40 San Antonio-based students will be enrolled in pilot distance classes at Sul Ross for the Spring 2014 semester. By Spring 2015, any additional courses in Geology, Biology, Chemistry, Physics Astronomy and other STEM topics determined a priority by SAC and Sul Ross for transfer preparation or completion of a STEM degree will have been developed and piloted. By F all, 2016, at least half of Sul Ross junior and senior level-biology and geology classes will be available via virtual (hybrid online/web-conference/distance) formats. By Spring, 2016, Sul Ross will have expanded its capacity to deliver all coursework necessary for a degree in Biology or Geology through virtual/distance formats to SAC or other San Antonio-based transfers to Sul Ross, with the exception of required/elective field courses.

Objective 3: to increase enrollment in Environmental Science to 100 students and to increase graduates to 25. Addresses Texas’ needs for ES workers

By F all 2012, and each year thereafter, at least 20 additional SAC students will declare Environmental Science (ES) as their major. By F all 2014, 15 students will complete 30 hours toward an AS in Environmental Science. By Spring 2016, SAC will have enrolled at least 100 students in its Environmental Science, and at least 25 ES/STEM majors will have graduated and/or transferred to 4-year programs.

Objective 4: to increase SAC and Sul Ross students’ access to industry-standard instrumentation and research/inquiry-based STEM education for at least 3,000 students.

By F all 2012, Sul Ross will have renovated laboratory space to accommodate new instrumentation; SAC’s GeoSpot will have doubled the number of hours it is open each week, and both the GeoSpot and the MathSpace will have increased the number of students tutored by at least 50% from Spring 2010. By F all 2014, and each semester thereafter, over 50% (>2500 students over a 2-year cycle) of STEM and general population students at Sul Ross will be using ASEM, XRF/D, autoclaves, new microscopes/other instruments acquired through the project.


Addresses need for STEM educated workforce, research based, hands-on learning, and industry-level skills.

By F all 2015, and each year thereafter, 100 SAC students will use the MESA Center’s Project Room annually. By F all 2016, enrollment in courses using STEM instrumentation & technology at Sul Ross will have increased by at least 10%; users of Learning Centers at SAC will have higher GPA’s than non-users.

Objective 5: at least 50% of Biology and Physical/ Earth Sciences courses at SAC and Sul Ross will be improved with research/inquiry- and/or instrument-based, learner-centered methods and content

Addresses students’ low completion, PGR

By July 31, 2012, and each year thereafter, at least 21 SAC/10 Sul Ross STEM faculty will have participated in workshops Summer Institutes STEM Faculty Development, hosted by SAC and Sul Ross in alternating years of the project. By Dec 31, 2012, and each year thereafter, 10% of STEM syllabi at SAC and Sul Ross will show changes based on faculty training By Spring 2016, at least 75% of STEM faculty at Sul Ross (21) and SAC (53) will have participated in professional development activities related to improved STEM education for undergraduates; By F all 2016, 50% of STEM syllabi at Sul Ross and SAC will show changes made on the basis of training and/or research instrumentation acquired through the project

Objective 6: to increase STEM social/industry support networks and opportunities for paid research internships for at least 100 SAC and Sul Ross STEM students. Addresses need to connect Hispanic and low-income students to high-wage career opportunities through research experiences

By F all 2012, SAC’s Biology Club will have been re-established and a Geology Club established; Sul Ross will establish professional chapters of SACNAS and GSA, AIBS* By F all 2015, at least ten students from SAC/Sul Ross will have applied for NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates summer internships at universities. By F all 2016, membership in chapters of STEM-related Societies and Clubs at SAC and Sul Ross will have increased by at least 100 students, and SAC/Sul Ross STEM Club members will have participated in at least 3 joint activities and/or NSF REU opportunities. *Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Sciences, Geological Society of America, American Institute of Biological Sciences

Objective 7: To increase by 200% the numbers of SAC and Sul Ross STEM students engaged in research at SAC and Sul Ross. (Baseline Spring 2011) Addresses students’ need for undergraduate research experiences in order to succeed in STEM fields

By F all 2012, and each year thereafter, faculty from Sul Ross and SAC will participate in workshops, augmented by distance education technology, for STEM faculty to acquire knowledge and skill in mentoring student research projects. By F all 2013, SAC/Sul Ross STEM students will have participated in their first Summer Student Research Symposium. By F all 2014, Sul Ross and SAC will have developed a summer Field Study course for SAC and Sul Ross students. By F all 2016, three summer field study classes will have been implemented for at least 45 SAC students in the Sul Ross/Big Bend area; at least 100 students will have participated in Student Research Symposia conducted at SAC and Sul Ross in alternating years By F all 2016, over 300 students from SAC and Sul Ross will have utilized research instruments/resources provided through the project for undergraduate research projects, independently and jointly.


Objective 8: To provide every STEM major at SAC and Sul Ross with timely, one-on-one faculty advising on STEM academic and career advancement and success. Addresses attrition from STEM fields in college, especially among Hispanic/low-income students

By F all 2012, and each year thereafter, at least 20% of STEM faculty at Sul Ross and SAC will participate in training on faculty advising at professional development workshops and institutes. By August 15, 2013, a pilot will have been conducted with 3 faculty members at SAC and 3 at Sul Ross who are paid to provide STEM major advising for three weeks before classes during registration. By F all 2016, all STEM faculty at Sul Ross and SAC will have received training in faculty advising and over 2,000 STEM majors from SAC and Sul Ross will have received comprehensive STEM academic and career advising. By F all 2016, Fall-to-fall retention rates for Hispanic and low- income full-time FTIC’s will have improved by 5% at both HSI’s.

(HSI Performance Indicator 2) Project Outcomes: Performance Indicators/Benchmarks Outcome 1: STEM majors at SAC and Sul Ross.will have increased by at least 10%.

By F all 2012, and each year thereafter, the numbers of full time STEM majors will have increased by at least 2% over the previous year at both SAC and Sul Ross.

(HSI Performance Indicator 1)

Outcome 2: The numbers of STEM majors at SAC and Sul Ross receiving associates degrees in 3 years or bachelor’s degrees in 6 years or completing core coursework for transfer in STEM fields will have increased by at least 10%.

By F all 2012, and each year thereafter, the number of SAC/Sul Ross STEM majors completing the core will increase by 2% over the previous year. By Spring 2014, the number of students receiving STEM associates degrees at SAC or STEM bachelor’s degrees from Sul Ross will increase by 4% over Spring 2010. By F all 2016, the numbers of STEM associates degrees at SAC or STEM bachelor’s degrees from Sul Ross will increase by 6% over Spring 2014.

(HSI Performance Indicators 3 & 4)

Outcome 3: Hispanic and low-income students will have access to an affordable, high quality STEM degree at SAC and Sul Ross.

By F all 2013, and each year thereafter, SAC and Sul Ross will each raise at least $25,000 to match Title V funds to establish endowments for scholarships/programs that support STEM students. By F all 2016 new STEM instrumentation and technology at SAC/Sul Ross will be available to at least 3,000 students a year. By F all 2016, SAC and Sul Ross will have endowments exceeding $250,000 each for STEM student scholarships and programs.

(HSI Performance Indicators 1 & 5)

(ii) The extent to which the design of the proposed project is appropriate to, and will successfully address, the needs of the target population or other identified needs.

Adelante Tejas will address the needs of underrepresented students by improving the

quality of STEM courses, increasing access to and participation in STEM fields and expanding


academic support. SAC and Sul Ross will increase faculty advising and tutoring so that Hispanic

and low-income students can gain skills, knowledge, and confidence for success. The project will

promote transfer for students from SAC to Sul Ross (and other four-year STEM degree-offering

institutions) by: 1) distributing information to students about transfer options; 2) refining and

streamlining articulation agreements; 3) increasing access to courses that enable SAC students to

earn Sul Ross credit; and 4) developing professional relationships between faculty at both HSIs

that will enable them to better advise and encourage students to transfer. Students from both

campuses will be provided with access to research opportunities and instrumentation and

equipment which currently do not exist at either campus. Joint professional development

workshops will teach STEM faculty at both institutions how to incorporate proven instructional

methods and advising strategies that improve understanding, communication and success in

classes where students from different sociocultural backgrounds apply diverse learning styles.

Recently released results of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering’s

2009 Graduating Scholars Survey revealed that “Undergraduate experiences with research and

interactions with faculty were critical to students’ post-graduation educational planning. Students

who had worked with faculty on research or presented research at conferences were quite likely

to express an interest in eventually pursuing a Ph.D. in engineering.” This partnership is focused

on promoting scholarly interest and STEM excellence through faculty and peer mentored-study.

Closing the Gaps and Building Strengths f rom W eaknesses through Partnership:

How does it make sense for Hispanic-Serving Institutions 500 miles apart to partner?

SAC and Sul Ross share key commonalties as well as complimentary differences that make them

excellent partners for a Title V STEM Cooperative project. Both primarily serve Hispanic,

academically and economically disadvantaged students. Sul Ross’ location demands that it serve


as both a community college and a four-year undergraduate institution, and so it has developed

infrastructure, programs and strategies to meet the needs of underprepared college students. Both

schools are expanding distance education programs – SAC because of the facility limits endemic

to inner-city institutions, and Sul Ross to meet the needs of time- and place-bound students.

San Antonio needs more experts in geology, hydrology and environmental science to

meet the infrastructure needs of a fast-growing population in a water-poor state. Sul Ross has the

faculty and research assets to help SAC students become experts in these fields and a huge

natural laboratory for STEM students to learn in. SAC students need the affordable tuition and

small classes that Sul Ross has to offer, and Sul Ross needs to attract higher numbers of moti-

vated transfer students and become more sophisticated in its delivery of distance education to its

far-flung local student population. SAC offers Sul Ross years of experience in online education.

PR OJE C T D ESI G N ST R A T E G I ES (see more detailed descriptions under Project Services)

a) Improvement of Access to H igher Education for ST E M Students:

This project will make STEM education more accessible to Hispanic and other low

income students in three ways: 1) by building the SAC-to-Sul Ross two-year-to-four-year degree

pipeline; 2) by making STEM coursework available in online/hybrid delivery modes, more

convenient for working students at both HSIs; and 3) by making the last two years of a STEM

bachelor’s degree available to SAC students at a lower cost than what is now available locally.

Sul Ross faculty will receive instruction in the development of online coursework from

SAC staff and faculty, who have extensive experience in online education, and the HSIs will

jointly develop online and/or hybrid upper-level geology and biology courses for distance

delivery to students in San Antonio, which will decrease four-year degree cost for SAC/San

Antonio-area students, increase STEM transfer rates from SAC to Sul Ross and decrease


commuting barriers for Sul Ross students. SAC will develop a distance G IS undergraduate

course currently unavailable at Sul Ross due to limited faculty availability, which will accelerate

STEM degree completion at Sul Ross, and both institutions will develop and deliver new ST E M

academic and career planning workshops to attract and retain potential STEM students.

To develop a transfer pipeline for Hispanic and low-income STEM students, 1) at least

nine ST E M articulation agreements will be completed between SAC and Sul Ross, 2) faculty

professional development workshops/institutes and joint Adelante Tejas events will educate

SAC faculty about the Sul Ross campus (small, safe, multicultural) and STEM degrees available

there; and 3) ST E M faculty advising will be improved at both HSIs.

b) Improvement in the Quality of ST E M education at SA C and Sul Ross:

STEM educational quality will be improved through: 1) faculty professional

development; 2) the development of new research opportunities for undergraduates; 3) web-

based instructional modules for biology and geology learning reinforcement; and 4) more hands-

on science learning through improved instrumentation and technology.

Faculty professional development will ensure that SAC and Sul Ross faculty provide

instruction at the top of their disciplines and, through best-practices curriculum development

stipends, incorporate equipment, instrumentation and technology into coursework.

In order to increase undergraduate student engagement and success at both IHEs through

a research context that emphasizes the use and operation of analytical instrumentation, Sul Ross

will improve its science and technology laboratory capacity for student engagement in hands-on

learning and research through new instrumentation. This will include: X-ray fluorescence

(XRF) and X-ray diffraction crystallography (XRD) X-ray scattering techniques; and a Scanning

Electron Microscope (with Sputter Coater), which will have a cybertechnology unit located at


one HSI, and used at both. Improved G IS computer lab (server capacity/data integrity) and

additional G IS and Analytical Lab technicians will also support student learning.

Both SAC and Sul Ross will increase their utilization of portable, mobile technology

(meeting software) for academic content delivery, professional interaction and collabo-

ration as well as distance delivery. STEM faculty at the HSIs will also jointly develop web-

based study/learning modules for “Biology and Geology Universities” – websites that offer

reinforcement of concepts learned in class or a lab – shared by SAC and Sul Ross. A computer

programmer and a webmaster shared between the schools will help faculty create learning

modules accessible to students at both schools for both distance learning and exam preparation.

Among the most crucial improvements to STEM education will be the development of

research contexts for ST E M undergraduate engagement for SAC and Sul Ross under-

graduates, primarily through summer field exper iences at Sul Ross and through research

projects shared between Sul Ross and SA C classes via distance technology. Workshops,

augmented by distance education technology, that educate STEM faculty about emerging

practices relevant to mentoring student research projects will build toward credit-bearing

summer field experiences for students and conferences that include student research

symposia and ST E M faculty development, hosted by SAC and Sul Ross in alternating years.

c) Improvement in Support Structures for ST E M Students According to a 2010 Breakthrough Collaborative study, many underrepresented students,

especially first-generation students, lack resources that are necessary for navigating the

college search and application process. Urban, low-income students rely on familial or

friendship networks that have little or no information (Center for American Progress, 2009). In

addition, a 2010 College Board Advocacy and Policy Center report found that the financially


neediest students are the least likely to apply for financial aid. Reasons include a lack of

basic understanding about financial planning, what it means to go to college and financial aid.

Hispanics are particularly vulnerable; 44% of Latino parents surveyed by the College Board for a

subsequent 2010 report indicated they were aware of Pell Grants, compared to 81% of White

parents and 82% of African-American parents.

To address these issues, ST E M faculty at each institution will be trained to provide

academic and ST E M career advising early in students’ academic careers, and to assist

students to identify and apply for financial assistance (including SMART grants). Sul Ross

STEM faculty are expert academic and career advisors. At SAC, only biology faculty currently

advise students; other STEM majors are assisted by a single professional counselor assigned to

them. Therefore, STEM faculty at SAC will receive training in academic and career advising and

learn how to refer students to appropriate campus and outside resources for personal issues.

Faculty at both HSIs will receive training in financial aid advising.

One reason students do not receive adequate STEM advising is that, while many STEM

faculty are expert at advising in their disciplines and understand the complexities of course

progression, they are usually on break before each semester during the time that most

students register for classes. Because faculty members are not paid to be present in the

department between semesters, students – especially new students – are left to less-informed

resources. Adelante Tejas will pilot a program where ST E M faculty trained in advising best

practices will be paid for three weeks at regist ration time each semester “out of contract” to

provide pre-term advising for ST E M students. This will increase departments’ capacities at

both IHEs to do excellent academic advising, which will help reduce time-to-degree for STEM

students who currently make course selections and career decisions based on poor information.


In addition, at SAC, Adelante Tejas will improve students’ study/social environment and

research capacity through the expansion/improvement of the M ESA , BioSpot, GeoSpot and

MathSpace Centers at SAC. Student utilization of these tutoring/study centers, specific to

engineering (MESA), biology (The BioSpot), chemistry, geology, chemistry and GIS (the

GeoSpot), and math (The MathSpace) have proven effective in improving grade point averages

and retention for students who use them, but they lack adequate space, learning materials and/or

tutors. The MESA will be open more hours through additional part-time staff and gain an

additional room for student project work; both the MathSpace and the GeoSpot will offer more

tutoring for pre-STEM and geosciences students and expanded hours. The BioSpot will increase

its library of slides and models and add upper-level resources for the use of SAC/Alamo

College’s students who have transferred “virtually” to Sul Ross’ biology degree program.

The components, divisions or departments of the institutions that will conduct activities, supply services, or develop products to meet the identified needs:

Adelante Tejas will be led by Project Director Barbara Knotts, MLIS, who is currently

completing the management of an extremely successful CCRAA grant. She will operate under

the supervision of SAC’s President, Robert Zeigler, PhD, and work closely with the Chairs of

Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, Physics, Engineering and Architecture, and Math to

coordinate project activities, including faculty professional development and curricular revisions,

STEM center expansions and upgrades, STEM faculty advising, utilization of technology in the

classroom and distance technology in STEM teaching, and 2-plus-2 pipeline building, including

the development of bachelor’s degrees in biology and geology offered by Sul Ross via distance

education to SAC students. The chairs will work together and with Sul Ross chairs to develop

training in STEM faculty advising and to coordinate the production of web-based modules for

the Biology and Geology Universities, and STEM faculty will begin faculty advising for STEM


majors, participate in best practices seminars and Summer Institutes, and help lead undergraduate

summer field studies in the Big Bend area. Biology and Geology faculty will be trained to

deliver junior and senior-level laboratory classes for SAC distance education transfers to Sul

Ross, and will develop the web-based modules in conjunction with their Sul Ross colleagues.

At Sul Ross, Co-Project Director Leslie Hopper, who has extensive experience with

sponsored programs and STEM research for undergraduates, will report directly to Sul Ross’

President, Ricardo Maestas. She will assist the Deans of Arts and Sciences and Agricultural and

Natural Resource Science and the Chairs of Biology, Geology, Natural Resource Management

and Interdisciplinary Studies (teacher preparation) to purchase needed instrumentation and

pursue faculty training in its use and maintenance. She will work closely with Ms. Knotts to

coordinate faculty professional development workshops/institutes related to STEM advising,

teaching best practices and technology-enhanced educational delivery.

Q U A L I T Y O F PR OJE C T SE R V I C ES

a. Improvement of Access to H igher Education for ST E M students In order to increase the numbers of Hispanic and other low-income students involved in

STEM careers, this partnership will develop a transfer pipeline for ST E M students in three

ways: 1) by creating nine articulation agreements between SAC and Sul Ross in STEM disci-

plines; 2) by creating mechanisms whereby students will become more interested in STEM

careers at both schools; and 3) by developing distance junior- and senior-level coursework at Sul

Ross which transfers from SAC can access in an economical and student-centered manner.

A full-time STEM Pipeline Coordinator will work for both SAC and Sul Ross, traveling

between the schools to coordinate the negotiation of nine 2+2 articulation agreements between

each institution’s STEM faculty, transfer personnel and administrators and to troubleshoot


and streamline the transfer process. By the end of year one, SAC and Sul Ross expect to have

articulation agreements in Biology and Geology, and by year three, in Environmental Science,

Natural Resource Management and STEM teacher preparation. Other agreements will include

Mathematics, Animal Science, Chemistry, and behavioral/social sciences.

The Pipeline Coordinator will help the Project Directors at each site to coordinate

scheduling, facilities, and lodging for annual STEM faculty professional development Summer

Institutes and shorter mid-year trainings at each institution. Since some trainings will be held via

distance technology, the Pipeline Coordinator will help with logistics for these experiences.

During years three and four, methods for delivering junior- and senior-level courses for

degrees in Biology and Geology to SA C students via distance education will be finalized, and

students will begin to matriculate into this distance degree program (modeled after the Midland/

Sul Ross programs but with more online delivery). “Mirror” labs will be set up in San Antonio to

provide students with hands-on laboratory experiences, and SAC lab instructors will be trained to

conduct these labs with students taking Sul Ross classes from San Antonio. Sul Ross will also

develop distance offerings in the STEM teaching track and two Natural Resource Management

programs to meet the high demand for distance education-delivered coursework from Sul Ross.

Videoconferencing classrooms are expensive, physically constrained (limit courses to be

delivered during the same time slot) and support-intensive, requiring technical support people

on-hand/on-demand on both sides. The solution is to utilize significantly less expensive, but

equally effective training media such as Web Ex Training Center, Go to Meeting or Team Work,

commonly used in the corporate world. Top 100 schools have embraced this technology, partly

because students, faculty and administrators learn to meet and collaborate in an environment that

over 67% of corporations worldwide already use. Sul Ross will acquire licenses to access this


new web-based distance education/meeting technology, and will train faculty to deliver course

content in this more cost-effective, reliable and flexible manner.

This will allow Sul Ross and SAC to multiply delivery capacity, decrease start-up and

ongoing cost and reduce management and scheduling overhead. The use of distance meeting

technology will allow students at both HSIs to receive the same instruction, sometimes in the

same class section, increasing interaction between under- and upper-classmen and both HSIs’

faculty. Our students will finish college familiar with distance meeting and interaction skills

prevalent in today’s collaborative STEM workplace, which is decreasingly place-bound.

A crucial part of both recruitment into STEM fields and the transfer pipeline will be the

Joint Summer F ield Studies program. Discipline-specific teams of faculty from each school

will work closely with the Project Directors at SAC and Sul Ross to develop field study/research

experiences for SAC students at and around Sul Ross, in Big Bend National Park and at other

extraordinary field study sites in the Alpine area. These experiences will occur during summer

and between semesters so that SAC students can experience a university setting while

progressing in STEM degrees. In order to finance these trips, the field research may be linked to

research being done by Sul Ross faculty, and will, whenever feasible, be tuition-supported as a

laboratory hour for geology or biology courses at SAC, and/or as part of an introductory course

at Sul Ross that will give SAC students Sul Ross credit before they transfer. In addition to

offering students the opportunity to learn about Sul Ross, field research, and part of Texas they

may never have visited, the Joint Summer Field Studies will familiarize SAC faculty with the

educational and research opportunities available through Sul Ross, and create a mechanism

whereby SAC faculty mentors can “handoff” transfer students to faculty mentors at Sul Ross.

According to Dowd, et al (2010), most transfer students who ultimately earn bachelor’s


degrees in STEM fields first major in the social and behavioral sciences; at HSIs these majors

account for 60% of STEM baccalaureates. It is therefore crucial that a portion of Adelante Tejas

efforts be devoted to developing mechanisms for the recruitment of non-ST E M students into

ST E M careers. Therefore, the Project Directors at each campus will develop ST E M career

information events and workshops and a STEM Professional Speaker Series, and STEM faculty

will encourage their students to participate in these activities. Faculty at both campuses will work

to develop a ST E M academic/professional career development “pathfinder” web module to

help students find the right STEM discipline/career for their interests, featured on STEM

department web pages at both HSIs and used by STEM advisors. SAC will concentrate on

attracting students into its new Environmental Science major.

Adelante Tejas will also use another strong recruitment method to convert social/

behavioral science majors into “hard” science majors – increased exposure to research

instrumentation for undergraduates (described below). At Columbia College in South

Carolina, students in general chemistry, organic chemistry and a new course called “instrumental

analysis” obtained access to a nuclear magnetic resonance instrument through NSF funding.

Approximately half of first-year students in introductory chemistry indicated that using the

machine for scientific investigation increased their interest in chemistry, and 52% of all students

indicated that they were interested in doing undergraduate research (AAAS, 2009).

b. Improvement in the Quality of ST E M Education at SA C and Sul Ross Professional Development: The backbone of the institutional changes accomplished by this

project will be professional development in ST E M content and teaching best practices for

faculty at SA C and Sul Ross. This training will be delivered during week- long Summer

Institutes, held in alternating years at each HSI (SAC years 1, 3 & 5, Sul Ross years 2 & 4), with


faculty members receiving $200/day for attendance, in addition to conti-nuing education units

(CEUs). Topics will include: discipline-specific content; training in the use of classroom

technology (e.g. smartpens, smartboards, clickers); distance education tech-nology (online,

hybrid, web meeting software-based); faculty advising; research/ inquiry-based learning and

other STEM teaching best practices; converting face-to-face curricula to online curricula; online

teaching best practices; and development of undergraduate research experiences.

Training by outside experts and cross-training between the HSIs will occur during

Summer Institutes held every year at alternating institutions for the STEM faculty at both

schools, and through shorter workshops held via videoconferencing during the year. Faculty who

attend trainings through the grant will be able to receive best practices stipends for curriculum

revision/development to improve delivery and access, either as individuals or as cross-

institutional and/or cross-disciplinary teams.

Much of the training will concern faculty-student interaction. A small research study

published by Matusovich, Streveler and Winters (2010), conducted on engineering

undergraduates in Virginia, found that those who rated their interaction with faculty as most

supportive were also those with the highest GPAs. They also found that female and minority

students were more concerned with their “positive relatedness” to faculty than other students

(Matusovich, et al, 2010). Vogt (2008) found that when instructors were inapproachable or

inaccessible students experienced lowered self-efficacy, academic confidence and GPA.

Conversely, faculty engagement with students, or “academic integration,” had a positive effect

on self-efficacy, which in turn had strong positive effects on effort and critical thinking.

The results of a meta-analysis conducted by Abrami, Bernard and Lou (2006) indicated

that media and pedagogy that support interaction between the instructor and students are more


important than media and pedagogy that are used to establish individual student interactions with

content only. According to researcher Robert Marzano (2009), using interactive whiteboards

resulted in a 16% gain in student achievement. The handheld voting “clicker” that students use to

enter their responses to questions, which immediately shows the percentage of students

providing the correct answer in a bar graph or pie chart, and using the whiteboard to show

downloaded pictures charts and video clips from Internet sites such as Google Earth were both

associated with a 26 percentile point gain in student achievement. The interactive whiteboard

“reinforcer” which signals that an answer is correct with applause or uncovering information

hidden under objects, was associated with a 31 percentile point gain in student achievement.

Guided inquiry and project-based learning will also be a focus of the Summer Institutes.

Recent studies (Branan & Morgan, 2010; Green, Elliott & Cummions, 2004) find the guided

inquiry approach to be quite successful in science laboratories. Students take ownership of their

own ideas and thoughts, and become more confident in their ability to succeed. Farrell et. al.,

(1999); Spencer, (1999), and Hanson and Wolfskill (1998) suggest that through confidence,

students also gain more knowledge and can apply what they have learned in other situations.

Students cannot “memorize” material, but must rely on true knowledge and experiences to

succeed. Moreover, recent national studies also suggest that the traditional method of laboratory

teaching is less effective than the collaborative approach guided inquiry facilitates (National

Research Council, 2005). Chen, et al (2007) reviewed evaluations from undergraduates at Cal

Poly State University participating in project-based learning, and found that students strongly

feel that this is a better method for ‘learning’ and believe that the projects provide a more

realistic environment for applying STEM principles towards solving practical problems.

While Sul Ross, through its CCRAA grant, made the entire last two years of its Biology


and Geology degrees available by distance, Sul Ross’s capacity in online undergraduate

coursework is still maturing. SAC has extensive experience in offering online coursework, and

has several associate’s degrees online, but has not found a way to offer laboratory work via

distance education. Professional development will cross-train STEM faculty in distance lab

learning/online/hybrid technologies/teaching methods, and include simultaneous course

alignment work. SAC and Sul Ross will make courses/labs not currently available via distance,

online or hybrid delivery accessible to their own and to one other’s students.

Faculty will receive curriculum development stipends to improve their courses, articulate

coursework between SAC and Sul Ross, to convert face-to-face classes to online courses, and to

enhance courses with best practices learned at Adelante Tejas trainings. Only faculty members

who have attended Summer Institutes or another training will be eligible for these stipends. Each

faculty member or team of faculty will have to submit a one-page application in order to be

awarded a stipend upon submission of revised syllabi/curricula/course materials.

The partners expect that a natural result of professional development will be the creation

of inter- and intra-institutional communities of practice. Online communities of practice,

where learners chat, tweet, post information and set up discussions, are active learning

environments. After participating in online teacher communities, 77% of teachers surveyed by

Duncan-Howell (2010) changed their teaching practices. Adelante Tejas participants will be

assisted in the creation of discipline-specific and/or ST E M online communities of practice.

Improved Instrumentation: One of the methods Adelante Tejas will use to increase under-

graduate student engagement and success at both campuses is the use and operation of analytical

instruments, in hands-on learning and research. New instrumentation will be used at all levels,

from intro freshman courses through undergraduate “capstone” courses developed specifically


for this project that will prepare students for academic and professional STEM careers.

Over half of students at Sul Ross and up to 500 students at SAC will be introduced to

analytical instrumentation and methods primarily through required introductory and advanced

science courses in Geology, Chemistry, Physics and Biology. By introducing this technology and

embedding the utilization of analytical methods and technology in a broad array of basic courses

(1301-1302 level), Sul Ross will help ensure that all students emerge with stronger fundamental

science education. Since many of Sul Ross’ graduates will be future educators, this project will

ensure that they have a more in-depth understanding of the principal physical, biological and

chemical structures that are ubiquitous in the natural world.

Faculty at both institutions agree that the earlier instrumentation is introduced to students,

the more relevant concepts and skills introduced in their course lectures and reading will be.

Instrumentation will be used at three levels: 1) in introductory biology, chemistry and geology

courses it will be used as illlustration in demonstration mode; 2) at the intermediate level

instruments will be used in the analysis of specimens in lab, lecture, and research projects, and 3)

at the advanced level, students will use it in analysis of research materials for individual projects.

The use of this instrumentation will be integrated into Sul Ross’ successful McNair Program.

Summary of Requested Equipment: There are three major pieces of equipment lacking at Sul

Ross that can be utilized across many disciplines. They are 1) an analytical scanning electron

microscope (ASEM) with EDS and sputter coater, 2) an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF)

and 3) an x-ray diffractometer (XRD).

The ASE M has the capability to take high depth-of-focus photographs of objects from

5X to 300,000X with resolutions down to 3nm, and to perform elemental analyses for elements

from carbon to uranium. The ASEM images a sample surface by scanning it with a high-energy


beam of electrons in a raster scan pattern. The electrons interact with the atoms that make up the

sample, producing signals that contain information about the sample's surface topography,

composition and other properties such as electrical conductivity. The ASEM is widely utilized in

science classes and research labs in universities as well as in the labs of law enforcement,

pharmaceuticals, semiconductor development, nanotechnology research centers and oil and

minerals exploration facilities. The sputter coater is used to address problems encountered

when coating difficult samples for FESEM imaging, which need extremely thin, grain-free,

uniform coatings to eliminate charging and improve contrast on low-density materials. The

ASEM will be cyber-capable to permit samples analyzed at Sul Ross to be viewed

anywhere, including SA C classrooms.

The X R F utilizes x-rays to excite elements in the sample being studied to give off

characteristic radiation. These emitted x-rays are collected by various detectors and the resulting

spectrum is analyzed by computer programs to give elemental composition of the sample. It

gives a bulk analysis of the specimen as opposed to ASEM’s spot analysis. The XRF can be used

for major, minor and trace element determination in rocks, minerals, soils, ceramics, fibers,

papers, and most solids, and can analyze liquids and even gases.

The X RD uses x-rays to determine the spacing of atomic layers in materials, the most

precise method of determining a solid as every compound has a unique set of inter-atomic

distances. XRD units can both identify the compounds in a sample and give the percentages of

each compound in the sample.

As described in the need statement on pages 7-9, many students come to our schools

with inadequate backgrounds in science. Science has the power to excite, but many students have

rarely had the opportunity to view pollen at 3000 X magnification, or to be able to identify the


minerals in a rock sample. It is the difference between knowing and not knowing. If students can

surmount their initial unfamiliarity with science, we can attract and retain STEM students.

Sul Ross facilities will be renovated to accommodate the new instruments in Year One

and the instruments will be acquired in year one and early in year two, when faculty will be

trained in their use. Due to the intensive use and sensitive nature of the instruments and

equipment to be acquired, as well as the need for support staff to assist faculty and students with

analytical methods, Sul Ross will hire an Analytical Laboratory Technician (Lab Tech Level I),

in the middle of year two and will institutionalize the position over the grant period.

Expansion of G IS learning capacities through sharing of resources: Knowledge about

geographic information systems is a critical part of Sul Ross’ Geology, Biology and Natural

Resource Management degrees, and is useful for STEM teaching (Interdisciplinary Studies)

majors as well. GIS knowledge allows students to collect geographic data and analyze spatial

relationships, and is emerging as a central skill set in many professions, but especially STEM.

These courses, which are required for several majors at Sul Ross, greatly impact students’

success in other field courses required toward four-year degrees in the sciences, and give

students an extremely competitive edge in their future academic and professional careers.

SAC has an excellent GIS program that leads to a number of certificates and an AAS in

GIS. Instructor shortages constrain the availability of these courses at Sul Ross. For this reason,

Sul Ross faculty will be provided the opportunity to obtain both basic and advanced ESRI GIS

over the project period. This will help Sul Ross faculty to integrate GIS into their coursework

and research. To address the near-term GIS-skilled faculty shortage in Alpine, the excellent GIS

program and laboratory at SA C , which has adequate ESRI-trained GIS instructors but often has

to close GIS sections for lack of students, will deliver G IS instruction to Sul Ross. By


delivering GIS instruction electronically from SAC’s GIS lab to undergraduates in Sul Ross’ lab

during semesters when it is unavailable there, students at both schools will benefit and time-to-

degree will decrease. The development of SAC’s capacity to deliver GIS at a distance will also

help SAC deliver GIS courses to the workplace. To support the increased use of Sul Ross’ GIS

lab, a GIS tech will be hired mid-year one and institutionalized over the grant period. In

addition, Sul Ross and SAC faculty will develop an " Intro to F ield G IS " course for SAC

transfers to Sul Ross, and will arrange to have this course yield credit for either or both schools.

Development of online study modules for web-based “Biology & Geology Universities”:

SAC’s Biology Department, using models developed by Ivy League schools for upper-

level students, has created a “Biology University” Website comprised of learning modules that

students use to enhance their understanding of classroom lecture and lab work, and to study for

exams. Each module was designed by a faculty member working with a computer programmer/

website expert and uses graphics, videos, and a small amount of text, with an explanatory voice-

over, to describe scientific phenomena/concepts, to show how a lab experiment should be

conducted, or to give instruction in scientific/lab methods. Productive grades rates in Biology

have risen at SAC since the modules were developed.

With Adelante Tejas funds, SAC and Sul Ross will expand this learning tool in two ways:

1) faculty at both schools will work with the programmer to develop modules for use by junior-

and senior-level Sul Ross undergraduates in Alpine and San Antonio; and 2) Geology faculty at

both schools will create a “Geology University” website that serves all four years of

undergraduate coursework in Geology. Instead of mechanical voice-overs, we plan to use STEM

faculty for voice-overs and introductions, to make the modules more familiar and interesting to

students. Faculty working together on this project will strengthen bonds between our HSIs.


Development of research contexts for ST E M undergraduate engagement:

THECB student data and research findings suggest that, while graduating high school

seniors may master content during high school, they may not be achieving cognitive and

behavioral skill sets that enable intellectual curiosity, reasoning, problem solving, self-moni-

toring of learning needs and independent work. Field research projects will promote acquisition

of these skills. This type of exposure to scientific learning can reaffirm principles learned in high

school while introducing students to laboratory environments and new equipment (Gilmer 2007).

Tsui (2007) found that student engagement in hands-on research, whether in an academic

setting or in an industry internship, can increase the numbers of students who pursue STEM

degrees and careers. Involvement with faculty research at the undergraduate level can help

clarify educational and career plans and enhance students' sense of self-efficacy. Other positive

effects of undergraduate research include 1) early access to the research setting and 2) in-depth

study, which propels students to strive for better grades (Gilmer, 2007). Participants in field

research also receive informal mentorship through naturally-forming relationships with faculty

that result in superior outcomes (Davidson & Foster-Johnson, 2001; Gándara, 1999).

Paid research work has the added benefit of helping students defray college expenses

(Tsui, 2007), especially for minority students, who often face unmet financial needs even after

financial aid assistance (Long & Riley, 2007). Therefore, one of the objectives of this project

will be to obtain an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant for Sul Ross,

and, through professional development, to make all STEM faculty aware of the REU and other

opportunities available nationwide to their students, so that they can assist students in pursuing

paid research experiences. For faculty interested in promoting undergraduate research, topics

covered during the Summer Institutes will help faculty learn how to: develop and select research


projects appropriate for undergraduates; select undergraduate researchers; mentor student

researchers and develop and use their research skills; and link research to the classroom. During

Summer Field Studies, students will simultaneously get their lab credit, be exposed to Sul Ross

and be exposed to hands-on field science. Adelante Tejas will support the development of

these experiences, but tuition, fees and other funding will support the actual experiences.

c. Improvement in Support Structures for ST E M Students

STEM career advising in home department during “out of contract” timeframes:

The Washington Post reported in November of 2010 that "leaders of Howard Community

College have found that students who meet regularly with volunteer 'coaches' are significantly

more likely to continue their studies than classmates who do not." At Howard Community

College, 57% percent of students either graduate or transfer to four-year colleges within four

years of enrolling, a rate much higher than most of the nations community colleges. They

attribute this in part to their "Step UP” program of coaching and support (De Vise,11/10/10).

Faculty are generally hired assuming that they will teach in the classroom, engage in

research, publish in their field and secure grants to support their research and professional

interests. Some faculty members do not initially know they will be expected to advise students in

addition to these responsibilities. Seasoned faculty understand the significant role departmental

faculty academic advising plays in student success. As higher education has become more

complex, the single-tutor, faculty-student model has been replaced by a network of specialized

instructional and intervening support structures (White, 2004). This trend is equally true at Sul

Ross, where a TRIO Student Support Services and professional advising in the “Lobo Den”

address an increasingly complex portfolio of advising, counseling and mentoring. Unfortunately,

faculty contracts do not provide for pay during pre-semester and vacation schedule weeks when


enrollment and a consequent need for advising is greatest. This project proposes to pilot an

advising model which compensates faculty for out-of-contract time frames for advising in

thei r home department and to document the progress to degree for students who interact with

these faculty. Should the proposed model prove successful, amendments to faculty contracts and

a commensurate compensation structure will be considered by both HSIs’ administrations.

MentorNet surveyed approximately 2,500 STEM undergraduates, graduate students, and

postdoctoral scholars about mentorship and found that “98% of respondents reported that having

a mentor…was important to them…Almost 40% of the respondents were not encouraged by

anyone to find a mentor…Undergraduates believe that being taught study strategies and job

attainment skills are the most important types of mentoring to help them complete their degree

programs…Undergraduates who were female or who self-identified as members of at least one

underrepresented minority group were…significantly more likely to consider important all three

categories of mentoring (Psychosocial, Role Modeling and Academic/Career)…The two types of

support people who the respondents reported are the ‘most important’ support people are the

‘formal faculty advisor’ and ‘a relative or family friend’ ” (MentorNet, 2008).

This is particularly important, and particularly difficult, at community colleges. Angela

Provitera McGlynn (2004) cites retention studies that have highlighted connection, engagement

and commitment of Hispanic students to an institution as factors in persistence to degree

attainment, but points out that community colleges cannot rely on outside-of-classroom

activities, since many students commute to their classes between job and family responsibilities.

For this reason, she says, college professors must create an inclusive and welcoming classroom

atmosphere, build rapport with their students, and foster student-student bonds. This grant will

help provide faculty support to community college students through pre-term advising.


Adelante Tejas will use a peer mentor model to facilitate interaction between more

mature students who are farther along in their studies and new students needing to adapt to

departmental expectations by sponsoring the development of new ST E M clubs, increasing

the membership of existing clubs, and

affiliating these clubs with professional

ST E M societies.

Improvement of SA C ST E M L earning

Centers: Observations of the effects of

learning centers have shown that they create a setting where student performance and persistence

are enhanced, and where student-driven experimentations occur (Tsui, 2007). Also, a NACME

study found that student study centers were a common program component in model

postsecondary programs for minority engineering (Tsui, 2007). This is borne out by SAC’s

experience. Students using SAC’s MESA and BioSpot learning centers have higher grade point

averages than non-users. In year one of the project, SAC faculty will plan for the expansion of

SAC’s MESA Center to include the development of a “Project Room” where students can

use recycled materials to design and construct new machines, etc. In addition, the MathSpace

created using Title V CCRAA funding at SAC will be upgraded with additional computers and

tutors, and SAC’s BioSpot, which enhanced its “Biology University” web-based modules with

CCRAA funds, will also upgrade its computer lab, and purchase models, videos and electronic

access to research publications for use in the “library” area of the BioSpot. Most importantly,

Adelante Tejas funds will be used to transform SAC’s GIS laboratory, currently used by the

majority of GIS, Chemistry and Geology students for tutoring, into a “GeoSpot”, where

computer-based learning, more hours of tutoring, and a library are available. Faculty office hours

"We think the Geology, Biology and Natural Resource Management C lubs could really help guide new students who are coming into the program. Give them some guidance and good advice about how things really work in the department and how not to waste too much time getting the courses you need for (your) degree " STEM student focus group, Sul Ross, 2011


and group STEM advising will also take place at the GeoSpot. This will, like the MESA Center

and BioSpot, be a place where club activities can take place, and where students can receive help

in getting involved in distance learning and/or research opportunities at Sul Ross and other IHEs.

ST E M Student Development Course: The development of required Student Development

courses designed specifically for ST E M majors will allow both colleges to group STEM

majors together early in their academic career. Because many STEM students will be Hispanic,

the cluster classes will minimize “stereotype threat,” (Even, Robinson, & Carmeli, 2003; Gilmer,

2007), which has been attributed to the underachievement of many minority groups when

students perceive that they do not belong or are expected to be low achievers.

Endowment: In order to support STEM students in the long run and reduce the federal cost for

educating students at our institutions, SAC and Sul Ross will establish or increase STEM

endowment funds at each college. The endowment will help stabilize critical needs for STEM

student scholarships, long-term funding for maintenance and improvements to STEM

laboratories and SAC Learning Centers, and faculty development stipends for faculty to remain

current in both their disciplines and teaching methods. Both HSIs, with the support of their

Presidents and advancement offices, will request federal dollars each year of the grant ($30,000

at SAC and $25,000 at Sul Ross) and match them with non-federal dollars. Both institutions will

conform with the terms and conditions s that govern the endowment as provided in 34 CFR 628.

4. Q U A L I T Y O F PR OJE C T PE RSO NN E L

Minimum qualifications and responsibilities for Project Co-Directors Qualifications: Master’s degree required in a STEM, Management, Administration or an Education-related field; At least five years of grants and project management experience in the higher education environment; Experience in overseeing conversion of classes into distance delivery formats; Knowledge of multimedia presentations, distance learning technology and instructional techniques; Demonstrated ability to work as part of a team; Bilingual preferred Responsibilities: Collaborate with partner Co-Director and project personnel to ensure rigorous fiscal controls of Title V grant funds, reporting regularly to the President; development and


piloting of distance education and Internet courses and seamless transfer process between partners; Coordinate with faculty to develop distance delivery degree options in Geology, Biology, and Natural Resource Management; Oversee the creation of transfer guides and online course catalog; Coordinate with partner faculty & administrators to develop articulation agreements; Coordinate the development/ delivery of a field science course with faculty from SAC and Sul Ross; Coordinate project-related professional development for campus participants; Coordinate the collection and reporting of data for project evaluation and reporting purposes. Adelante Tejas Project Director : Barbara K notts, M L IS, Chair of Media Services, will be

the Project Director at SA C for this grant. Ms. Knotts, with an MLIS from the University of

Texas at Austin, has led Media Services for 16 years, supporting faculty/student instructional

technology needs. For 19 years, she was in charge of all acquisitions for SAC’s Learning

Resources Center. An instructional technology innovator, Ms. Knotts developed and managed

Texas Infrastructure Fund grants totaling over $1.2 million for library and campus-wide tech-

nology, improving SAC’s ability to teach and allowing SAC to have one of the first fully-online

Associate’s degrees in the nation. For SAC’s individual Title V grant, Ms. Knotts designed and

implemented SAC’s highly successful Internet Skills Center, serving 28,000 students a year. She

established SAC’s first “Smart” classrooms and equipped two new buildings with classroom

technology and videoconferencing capabilities. As Project Director for SAC’s Title V CCRAA

grant, she renovated four classrooms for a new MathSpace Learning Center, renovated two

classrooms to expand SAC’s MESA Center, and developed/coordinated 97 hours of professional

development workshops/summer institutes for 54 STEM faculty at SAC and Texas State San

Marcos. She has been President of the Texas Library Association’s Black Caucus Roundtable,

and organized TLA’s 2004 and 2007 Annual Conferences. Her experience is related to Adelante

Tejas’ objectives for expansion of STEM learning centers and faculty professional development

and to the efficient purchase of technology. She will spend 50% of her time on the grant.

Adelante Tejas Co-Director: L eslie Hopper , M A , will be the Sul Ross Co-Director for this


partnership. She has a bachelor’s degree in German language and literature from San Francisco

State, and a Master’s degree (2009) in Public Administration from Sul Ross. She has four years

of recent experience at Sul Ross as Grants Coordinator, administering sponsored research and

other grant projects. She has also spent two years facilitating research and reporting for a USDA

grant to Texas State Universities for Sustainable Agricultural Water Conservation in the Rio

Grande Basin as Assistant Director of the Rio Grande Research Center. She is responsible for

federally-funded grants reporting and accountability, project management, staff supervision and

website development related to this major STEM project. Her grants administration and STEM

research experience and her excellent relationships with STEM Chairs at Sul Ross relate directly

to Adelante Tejas objectives for the improvement of STEM teaching and the development of

faculty professional development opportunities at Sul Ross, and for the efficient expenditure of

grant monies. As the Sul Ross Co-Project Director, she will collaborate with the SAC Project

Director and the Pipeline Coordinator to develop seamless articulation agreements for Sul Ross

bachelor’s programs to be offered at both HSI’s. She will oversee the purchase and installation of

all STEM instrumentation, equipment, technology and other items to be acquired for this project

to facilitate STEM course delivery to SAC students. She will work closely with the SAC Project

Director to communicate the needs of Sul Ross and SAC students and recommend improvements

or additional services in the transfer office as well as to ensure proper fiscal controls of Title V

funds. She will spend 100% of her time on the grant.

F rank Perez, M .Ed., ST E M Pipeline Coordinator , received both his bachelor’s in

mathematics and his M.Ed. in Mathematics (2006) from Texas State University in San Marcos.

He has taught and tutored math at SAC, and has worked as an adjunct math faculty member for

three ACCD colleges. His experience includes working with at-risk youth as an Upward Bound


Math Trainer and with UTSA’s University Outreach Program. As Pipeline Coordinator for

SAC’s CCRAA grant, he was responsible for the development of 12 new STEM articulation

agreements between SAC and Texas State, and for doubling SAC-to-Texas State transfers from

2008 to 2010. His experiences as a STEM student, STEM teacher and Pipeline Coordinator

relate to Adelante Tejas’ activity objectives for increasing Sul Ross’s Hispanic STEM student

enrollment and increasing SAC transfers into STEM fields. He will dedicate 100% of his time

to coordinating Pipeline activities for both institutions.

San Antonio College and its partner Sul Ross State University are committed to strict

adherence of their non-discrimination policies, which clearly state neither institution will

discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation or handicap

for consideration of employment (Please see GEPA attachment in application package).

5. A D E Q U A C Y O F R ESO UR C ES (i) Adequacy of support from applicant institution; (ii) Relevance and demonstrated commitment of each partner :

Adelante Tejas addresses priority enrollment, retention, success and strategic goals for

both SAC and Sul Ross. Sul Ross President Ricardo Maestas, SAC President Robert E. Zeigler

and top-level administrators have appraised the project’s potential for beneficial impacts to both

institutions’ students, faculty and infrastructures and have pledged their full support to ensure

that the collaboration is a success. Our institutions have committed executive-level oversight,

personnel, facilities, space, technology, resources, and time and effort to the proposed project.

Oversight: Evidence of each institution’s commitment begins with the fact that both the

SAC and Sul Ross project directors will report directly to their institutions’ presidents. Each

institution will dedicate in-kind STEM and teacher education deans, chairs and finance office

personnel to manage Adelante Tejas activities through participation on Internal Monitoring


Committees (see Evaluation). Each institution’s facilities managers will also supervise laboratory

renovation activities in accordance with applicable state and local building codes.

Personnel: In addition to the personnel described above and in the Budget Narrative, the

project will have access to administrative and academic personnel with Title V experience,

including each HSIs’ chief financial officer and grants accountants, and the projects will have

access to business services, facilities, computing and telecommunications resources, personnel,

benefits and payroll services. Sul Ross students and transfers from SAC to Sul Ross will receive

services from Sul Ross’ One Stop Enrollment Center , including the Lobo Den, a student-

centered, facility with recruiting, admissions/registrar personnel, financial aid, bursar, student

IDs, parking, residential living, alumni affairs, advising and faculty mentoring. The One Stop

Executive Director is a former TRIO Student Support Services director, experienced in serving

the enrollment needs of students from Hispanic, first-generation and low-income backgrounds.

At both campuses, counseling and disabilities services will provide self-assessment,

personal counseling and assistance with disability-related issues. Each HSIs office of

Institutional Research and Effectiveness will collect and analyze in-house data for project

evaluation (see Evaluation, pg. 76). SAC and Sul Ross students will have access to CCAMPIS

childcare centers, freshman learning communities and grant-funded success programs such

as Sul Ross’ McNair, Title V Lobo Den and Puertas Abiertas post-baccalaureate programs and

SAC’s NSF S-STEM scholarships and Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Project.

Facilities: Both institutions have committed adequate office space and access to

technology for project personnel, and both will provide classroom and laboratory space to

provide distance education courses between SAC and Sul Ross. Both institutions will provide

meeting space and access to technology in support of Summer Institutes and workshops to be


held for faculty development at each site. In addition, Sul Ross will provide dedicated space on

the basement level of the Warnock Science Building for the new instrumentation. The project

budgets $95,000 for any necessary upgrades, renovations, wiring or HVAC to configure Sul

Ross room and building systems. Both institutions commit to furnish all grant-related offices.

T echnology: Both institutions have committed use of their BANNER student

information and ARGOS reporting systems. Sul Ross also commits its new AdvisorTrac

software for communication between faculty advisors and participants. At Sul Ross, Sungard

Higher Education provides technology support services, and SAC has comprehensive internal

services. The HSIs’ information technology staff will provide assistance with database manage-

ment for project staff, and training in the use of adaptive technologies for disabled students.

Natural Resources: Sul Ross students benefit from proximity and access to numerous

public and private natural resource conservation entities. The research collaborations and

professional relationships that Sul Ross faculty maintain with parks managers in the Big Bend

region of Southwest Texas will give Adelante Tejas students the opportunity to study topics such

as biology, entomology, geology, hydrology, natural resource management, range and wildlife

science and other STEM disciplines in a context that is unique in the nation.

Student F inancial A id: To reduce student financial burden/minimize dependency upon

student loans, both HSIs offer work study opportunities, private needs-based scholarships and

financial aid (85% of Sul Ross students qualify for some form of financial aid; 43% of SAC

students receive financial aid). Sul Ross offers the 4th-lowest college tuition in the state; a full-

time, in-state student pays only $2,200 per semester. In-district tuition and fees for 12 hours per

semester at SAC costs $819, making our IHEs two of the best values in the nation.

Sustainability and Institutionalization: Investments in equipment, technology and


joint-development activities throughout the project are designed to expand the availability of

exceptional field studies and laboratory instruction in STEM for Hispanic and low-income

students in a faculty-mentored context that will lead to graduation. Through successful academic

bridging between our two- and four-year institutions, Adelante Tejas will establish a practice of

student success-focused academic collaboration that will become integral to the social and

cultural infrastructure at each institution. In addition, ongoing costs will be addressed as follows:

the nominal cost for updating articulation agreements will be borne by Vice Presidents for

Academic Programs/Provosts offices and absorbed into annual operations. Delivery of the

Introduction to F ield Science course, and other courses developed through the project, will be

funded through tuition and fees and SAC fundraising. Sul Ross laboratory sections offered at

SA C will remain in place as cost-effective course delivery, depending on enrollment levels.

Since both HSIs have extremely high retention of their faculty, we expect that the faculty and

departmental relationships created through Adelante Tejas will endure long after the grant

ends. These will include relationships between faculty doing curricular improvements/piloting

best practices at each institution, Sul Ross faculty offering graduate credit courses to SAC

faculty and SAC/Sul Ross faculty co-teaching Sul Ross upper-level courses at SAC.

At SAC, long-term staffing and maintenance costs for the MathSpace center will be

covered by tuition/state reimbursement funds for courses and laboratory hours delivered, and

institutional funds or grant funding (e.g. Dep’t of Ed MSEIP, NSF ATE, NASA CIPAIR) will

cover costs for the M ESA Center Coordinator and the M ESA , BioSpot and GeoSpot tutors.

All centers will maintain staffing as SAC faculty start to conduct faculty advising in the centers.

At Sul Ross, the ongoing cost of maintenance of analytical instruments (Scanning

Electron Microscope, X-Ray Diffraction, X-Ray Florescence) will be fully supported through


departmental budgeting and contractual revenue streams that are generated by analysis

conducted on the instruments. The Analytical Laboratory T echnician, who will continue the

maintenance and operation of this equipment/instrumentation and support faculty and students

utilizing the instruments, will be institutionalized using state funds or a portion of relevant

departments’ budgets through direct fees generated from interdepartmental, local and outside

analysis conducted through the laboratory. Similarly, the G IS Laboratory T echnician will be

institutionalized through Biology, Geology and Natural Resource Management department co-

funding and contractual revenue streams generated from mapping and enterprise GIS services. In

addition, state, foundation or grant funds will supplement the continuation of the position.

(iii) The extent to which the budget is adequate to support the proposed project.

The project budget was developed by personnel with over three decades of combined

experience and budgeting expertise with federal, state and fee-for-service enterprise. Each item

and incidental cost for personnel, benefits, travel, construction, renovation, infrastructure,

services and materials related to the acquisition, installation and use of necessary items to

support the project goals and objectives was exhaustively researched and calculated.

(iv) The extent to which the costs are reasonable in relation to the objectives, design, and potential significance of the proposed project.

The costs that will be incurred for project activities in support of achieving project goals

and objectives are reasonable in that they were recently sourced (within the past 12-month

period) and are restricted to activities which directly relate to the design of the project. Only

activities that support Adelante Tejas objectives and services are considered in the budget.

(v) The extent to which the costs are reasonable in relation to the number of persons to be served and to the anticipated results and benefits.

The unit cost, or ratio of federal Title V costs for Adelante Tejas to the number of

students served, is approximately $380 per year , per student served.


In summary, SAC and Sul Ross are deeply committed to the success of the proposed

Adelante Tejas project. Dedicated office space has been committed; equipment, supplies and

furniture will be donated, and existing campus personnel will dedicate time to the project.

Administrative and academic policies are in place to help ensure academic success, financial aid

assistance for students will ensure that dependence on student loans is minimized, and the full

cooperation and support of the admissions, financial aid, registrar and data collection and

analysis components of the institutions have been secured.

M A N A G E M E N T PL A N

Both SAC and Sul Ross have had extremely successful Title V partnerships with similar

institutions. For the CCRAA Cooperative grant SAC implemented with Texas State University

from 2008-2010, the partnership, under the half-time leadership of Barbara Knotts, achieved all

of its objectives: a new six-classroom MathSpace was constructed and equipped and has been in

operation for nearly two semesters; SAC’s MESA Center was renovated, equipped and staffed;

the BioSpot expanded its resources and created 40 “Biology University” online modules for

student review of crucial biology content and skills; three STEM Centers provided tutoring to

students; 246 faculty (duplicated) at the two IHEs attended over 97 hours of workshops/institutes

on STEM best practices, teaching technologies and curricular alignment; Texas State graduate

students conducted research on developmental math practices at SAC; and 12 STEM articulation

agreements between SAC and Texas State were signed. STEM transfers from SAC to Texas

State nearly doubled, and Texas State became an HSI when its Hispanic enrollment rose from

23% to 25%. Students using Learning Centers at SAC had higher GPA’s than non-participants.

Sul Ross’ CCRAA partnership with Midland College (MCC) developed distance

modalities to deliver upper-division STEM coursework to Midland to permit MCC Biology,


Geology, Chemistry and Math students to complete entire STEM degrees via distance, doubling

the number of MCC science students transferring to Sul Ross and tripling the number of

Hispanic biology transfers during the project period.

The President of San Antonio College, Dr. Robert E. Zeigler, and Dr. Ricardo Maestas,

President at Sul Ross will oversee the implementation of Title V STEM and Articulation

Cooperative grant activities. A half-time Adelante Tejas Project Director at SAC, Barbara

Knotts, MLIS and a 100%-time Co-Director at Sul Ross, Leslie Hopper, will be responsible for

the overall day-to-day management of the grant throughout the project period. The Adelante

Tejas Co-Directors will be directly responsible to their Presidents for meeting the administrative

objectives of Adelante Tejas, with full authority and autonomy to administer the project accord-

ing to this plan. They will each be members of their President’s staff during the project period,

and meet with the President at least monthly. The Project Director at SAC will be supported by a

full-time Research Specialist hired to provide Adelante Tejas clerical support and data collection.

The Project Co-Directors will develop and work with Internal Monitoring Committees

composed of key stakeholders in the improvement of STEM education at SAC and Sul Ross and

the increase in successful transfers of Hispanic and low-income SAC students to Sul Ross. At

SAC, transfer staff, the three chairs of SAC’s STEM Departments, a STEM faculty member, a

STEM student and the VP for College Services (CFO) will serve on this monitoring committee;

at Sul Ross this group will be comprised of the Director of Sponsored Programs, Grants

Accountant, Student Support Services Director or McNair Director, Office of Information

Technology representative, Education Department Chair, and the STEM Department Chairs or

Center Director. Both schools will also include a student, a parent, and representatives of

ST E M businesses to serve on their Monitoring Committees. These Committees will hold two


videoconferences each year to review project progress and make recommendations.

Recommendations of the Monitoring Committees concerning the implementation of project

activities will become part of the continuous quality improvement process carried out in the

ongoing evaluation and administration of the project.

Adelante Tejas O rganizational Chart

Procedures developed to administer the project will reflect concern for eventual full

project integration into regular institutional operations at both institutions. Policies and

procedures will be continually refined over the grant period, to include internal monitoring and

reporting systems and efficient project operation which will lead to the achievement of

objectives. Project administrators will ensure full compliance with both institutional and federal

requirements, and that the project is smoothly and fully institutionalized at both schools.

The Director will meet with the Co-Director, the Pipeline Coordinator and key STEM

Robert E. Zeigler, Ph.D. President San Antonio College

Barbara Knotts SAC Project Director

Research Specialist

Sul Ross Chairs of Biology, of Earth & Physical Sciences, of

Natural Resource Management and of Education

Frank Perez Pipeline Coordinator

Leslie Hopper Sul Ross Project Director

Ricardo Maestas, PhD, President Sul Ross State University

SAC Chairs of Biology, Chemistry, Astronomy & Earth

Sciences, of Physics, Engineering & Architecture, of Math and of

Education

SAC and Sul Ross STEM Faculty

Data Tracking Spec.


chairs at each institution on a monthly basis, for two months each quarter by videoconference

and with every third meeting occurring in person at Sul Ross or SAC. Administrators, faculty

and other participants will be invited to monthly meetings. Each Director will prepare brief

monthly reports on progress toward achievement of milestones/objectives, and on barriers or

facilitators, and present them at monthly staffings, to elicit recommendations for program

improvement. In order to ensure the high quality of products and services provided through

Adelante Tejas, recommendations will be implemented on an ongoing basis.

The Adelante Tejas Director will make monthly reports on the project’s progress to the

78 faculty and staff leaders in SAC’s College Academic Council, and semi-annual reports to the

SAC Quality Enhancement Team (SQET) (see Evaluation). Since SQET is responsible for

measuring SAC’s progress toward achieving College Plan objectives, this reporting will greatly

facilitate the integration of the Adelante Tejas project into related, ongoing institutional

activities. Because faculty using specific interventions to improve the academic programs with

which they work daily will carry out Adelante Tejas activities, institutionalization of new

practices and programs will occur in a seamless and efficient manner.

The Pipeline Coordinator will work with Sul Ross recruiters and SAC transfer staff to

enhance student pipeline activities and improve transfer opportunities. He will arrange meetings

for faculty and staff of the two institutions around transfer and course alignment/articulation

agreement issues, and ensure reporting and follow-up for these activities. He will also assist the

Project Co-Directors in coordination of faculty trainings/Summer Institutes and meetings to

create opportunities for SAC students to take Sul Ross coursework from San Antonio.

SAC’s Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences Chair Teanna Staggs, who works with a

team of Biology faculty to manage the BioSpot, will oversee the utilization of new learning tools


in the BioSpot, development of new modules for the Biology University, and the implementation

of curricular improvements through the use of technology and web-based modules purchased/

developed through the grant. SAC Coordinator for Earth Sciences will supervise the develop-

ment of the GeoSpot and the hiring and scheduling of the tutors who will serve additional

students and keep the GeoSpot open additional hours. SAC’s Math Chair will be responsible for

hiring additional tutors for STEM students utilizing the MathSpace to study Calculus I, II or III.

At Sul Ross the Earth and Physical Science (includes Chemistry) Chair, with faculty

members David Mattison and Kevin Urbanczyk, will oversee the acquisition, installation and

course redevelopment for the ASEM, XRF and XRD instruments. Dr. Urbanczyk will oversee

the GIS technology, hardware and course design and delivery. The Biology Chair will oversee

acquisitions, course development and piloting conducted in Biology, and the Natural Resource

Management Chair will oversee the development of the Intro to Field Science course. The Chair

of Interdisciplinary Studies will oversee advising of STEM-Track Teacher Education to guide

STEM/Interdisciplinary Studies students toward secondary STEM teacher certification.

The Project Co-Directors will be responsible for coordination/scheduling of the Summer

Institutes and Academic Year Workshops, and for recruitment of faculty from both schools to

participate in professional development. Each Co-Director will be responsible for training and/

or coordinating training for Adelante Tejas faculty/staff and for scheduling project activities at

their institutions. They will also collect data or coordinate data collection on student outcomes

for the students of faculty who participate in project training activities and/or utilize new

instrumentation. The Co-Directors will prepare semester-end reports on component activities that

include data that measures the accomplishment of project objectives. They will work together to

compile annual reports, and perform continuous quality improvement for Adelante Tejas.


Adelante Tejas T I M E T A B L E Year One Year Two Year three Year Four Year F ive Tasks/Milestones Fall Spr Sum Fall Spr Sum Fall Spr Sum Fall Spr Sum Fall Spr Sum Hire/train project staff xxx Establish Monitoring Committees; meet twice a year

xxx x x x x x x x x x x

Pipeline: develop SAC transfers to Sul Ross; 9 new STEM Transfer Agreements

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Recruit into Environmental Science other STEM majors at SAC

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Remodel Sul Ross labs for new instrumentation

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Purchase & install instrumentation; Train faculty in use at Sul Ross

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Hire/train tutors for STEM Learning Centers & Labs

xx xx x xx xx x xx xx x xx xx x xx xx x

Tutoring x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Summer Institutes for faculty Student Research Symposia

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Summer Field Studies Course xxx xxx xxx xxx Faculty workshops x x x x x x x x x Pre-term STEM faculty advising xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx Faculty stipends for course revision/dev, best practice pilots

xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx

Pilot/assess best practices x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Online/videoconferenced/hybrid Sul Ross Jr/Sr courses in SA

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Remodeling-MESA Project Room xxxx xxxx SAC Sul Ross faculty teams build Bio & Geo Universities online

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Data collection and analysis; Evaluation

xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xxx

San Antonio College/Sul Ross Adelante Tejas, page 63

E V A L U A T I O N PL A N: (See also Goals and Objectives/Measurable Results pp. 24-27)

This evaluation design will collect/obtain, analyze and use high-quality and timely data,

including data on program participant outcomes (in accordance with FERPA) related to enroll-

ment, persistence and completion. We will also measure whether students have acquired skills

that lead to success in the STEM workplace. This will allow SAC and Sul Ross, both of whom

are developing strong “cultures of evidence,” to improve their data-based decision-making.

Responsibility for Evaluation activities: The Adelante Tejas Project Director will direct the

overall project evaluation and be responsible for coordination of evaluation activities with the

Co-Director at Sul Ross, the Monitoring Committees, and with the outside evaluator. The

Pipeline Coordinator will conduct data collection for articulation agreements and workshops/

institutes that are shared between SAC and Sul Ross, and also be responsible for documenting

the numbers of SAC-Sul Ross transfers. Data for evaluation of professional development

activities conducted separately by each institution will be collected by the Project Co-Directors.

Evaluation of the achievement of student success objectives for each school will be overseen by

the Project Co-Director at each school. The Co-Directors, assisted by the Offices of Institutional

Research at SAC and Sul Ross, will design databases for this data collection. With the assistance

of STEM Chairs at each school, the Project Co-Directors will document the creation of new

coursework, the revision of current STEM course for distance, online, modular, hybrid or other

delivery methods, and for the revision of coursework to include updated content. Institutional

Research and Effectiveness offices will also help Adelante Tejas staff generate reports from

student databases to perform quantitative evaluation of their objectives and to do the qualitative

and comparative study/analysis that will reveal the effectiveness of the Adelante Tejas program.

Institutional facilities staff and pertinent STEM chairs will assist the Co-Directors in


documentation of expansion or upgrade of laboratories, and Information Technologies staff will

help the Co-Directors track and document student use of labs/centers and new instrumentation.

External Evaluation: To assure objectivity and comprehensiveness in its evaluation of

institutional change, David F . T ruj illo, M A , Dean of Grants Development and Special

Initiatives at Northern New Mexico College will be contracted to assess all dimensions of the

Adelante Tejas project over five years. Mr. Trujillo has evaluated Department of Education

projects since 1982 for Hispanic-Serving and other institutions, has conducted outside evalua-

tions for SAC’s Title III and V projects for a decade, was a past Upward Bound Director, and has

administered three Title III/V projects and many other federal grants. At the end of SAC’s 2008-

2010 CCRAA Title V grant he provided guidance in the development of Adelante Tejas. Upon

Adelante Tejas’ funding, he will help finalize the design of the evaluation plan. During site visits

to SAC and Sul Ross (at least three days at each campus per year), Mr. Trujillo will review all

assessments of quantitative and qualitative data performed by the Adelante Tejas Directors,

perform additional evaluation activities, and make recommendations for improvement of the

program and the evaluation process in a report delivered annually to the Project Director and

administrators, which will be made part of reporting to the Department of Education.

Adelante Tejas’ working group developed a project evaluation design and method that 1)

identifies relevant data/information needs; 2) identifies available sources of data/information

and; 3) carefully analyzes data using standard descriptive and inferential analytic techniques.

Data E lements and Data Collection: Adelante Tejas staff will record formative activity

information for all Adelante Tejas planning, training and development activities. This will

include a log of planning sessions, transfer activities, course/program alignment/articulation

meetings, tutor trainings, Summer Institutes and workshops, Summer Field Study projects and


Research Symposia for students, enrollment of faculty and undergraduates in GIS courses

offered by SAC for Sul Ross students, and reports on planning and facilities renovation for the

establishment/expansion of the Biology/Earth and Physical Science laboratories at Sul Ross and

the MESA Center at SAC, and on improvements for the MathSpace, BioSpot and GeoSpot.

Appropriate STEM chairs will submit reports to the Adelante Tejas Director/Co-Director at their

institution on the utilization patterns at each lab/center twice a semester, based on tracking

software reports and other center documentation. Faculty receiving stipends for curriculum

development will submit their curricula to project staff for submission with Title V STEM and

Articulation reports, for an inventory of every course offered that has been revised by faculty

using Adelante Tejas stipends. The Adelante Tejas Co-Directors will also include agendas from

staff meetings in evaluation and required reports.

Summative data (quantitative and qualitative) will be gathered by the STEM chairs

and the Adelante Tejas Co-Directors, and compiled by the Director, who will work with the

external evaluator to analyze it for program improvement and reporting purposes. They will be

assisted by the Institutional Research and Effectiveness offices of their schools, which will

collect and analyze in-house data on participant performance, transfer-student data; student

demographic data; and baseline data for evaluation of retention, graduation and transfer rate;

Quantitative Evaluation: Adelante Tejas designers have chosen baseline indicators for

quantitative Adelante Tejas outcomes that focus on enrollment in-course/in-degree retention,

PGRs, Fall-to-Fall persistence, graduation at both SAC and Sul Ross, and transfer from SAC to

STEM programs at Sul Ross and other 4-year programs. The principal data sources for this

information will be student information systems at each institution (BANNER), which contain

demographic information on every student who will participate in or benefit from Adelante Tejas


Process Objectives: Measurement/Data elements Persons Responsible 1) Establish 9 new 2+2 articulation agreements between SAC & Sul Ross;

By 7/31/13, 3 signed STEM Transfer Agreements; by 7/31/15, 4 additional; by 9/30/16, 2 additional

Pipeline Coordinator Transfer Staff

2) Increase by 50% #’s of students at SAC/Sul Ross who can access STEM coursework in distance formats

#’s of courses converted; syllabi; students enrolled in courses. Catalogs; BANNER student enrollment data.

Project Co-Directors, faculty, STEM Chairs

3) SAC increases enrollment in Environmental Science to 100 students and graduates to 25

BANNER; each year 20 new students enrolled in ES; by 9/30/15, 15 students have 30 hrs toward AS in ES

STEM Chair/faculty

4) Increase SAC/Sul Ross students’ access to industry-standard instrumentation and research/inquiry-based education

Program Documentation; Lab/Center usage tracking reports/schedules; instrument-based course enrollment SR/Center user GPA SAC; BANNER Student databases, student surveys.

Project Directors, 6 STEM Chairs; SAC/ Sul Ross Facilities staff

5) 50% of Biology and Physical/ Earth Sciences courses at SAC and Sul Ross will be improved

Each year, 10% of STEM faculty trained. Attendance records, pre-& post tests, faculty surveys; Changed syllabi and Catalogs.

Project Co-Directors STEM Chairs

6) Increase STEM social/industry support networks and paid research internships for SAC/SR STEM students.

Club membership rolls; NSF REU grant completed; student applications for REU’s.

Project Co-Directors Faculty, Club sponsors

7) Increase by 200% the #’s of SAC and Sul Ross STEM students engaged in research at SAC/Sul Ross.

Faculty training rosters; course records; summer research records; participant pre-and post surveys

Project Co-Directors STEM Chairs, faculty

8) every STEM major at SAC/Sul Ross advised by STEM faculty

BANNER; Students surveys; DegreeWorks and other software; STEM department documentation

Outcomes: Measurement/Data elements Persons Responsible 1) # of STEM majors increases by at least 10% at both SAC and Sul Ross;

ea yr STEM majors increase by 2% over previous year. SAC/Sul Ross Student databases

Project Co-Directors STEM Chairs

2) #’s of students receiving STEM associates in 3 yrs or bachelor’s in 6 yrs in increases by at least 10% at SAC and Sul Ross

SAC/Sul Ross Student databases; Yr 2 & 3 STEM grads/transfers/core completers increase by 2% over previous yr; Yrs 3-5 increase by 3% over previous yr

Project Co-Directors STEM Chairs, faculty

3) : To increase the numbers of Hispanic and low income students who complete STEM degrees in a timely manner.

Foundation accounts; Each year SAC and Sul Ross raise $25,000 endowment match; By 8/31/16, SAC & Sul Ross each have endowments exceeding $250,000

Project Co-Directors, Foundation Directors at ACCD/Sul Ross


activities, and information about their class enrollment, grades, and certificate/degree acquisition

or transfer status. Finally, baseline and progress data for the HSI Performance Indicators (Fall-

to-Fall retention rates and three- and six-year graduation rates at each institution) reported to the

THECB for “Accountability: Key Measures” and “Migration” reports will be used.

STEM chairs will ensure that department staff track student use of upgraded/expanded

labs/centers through appropriate login software that identifies participants and determines the

type and length of their participation. This information, kept in a database at each lab/center, will

allow Co-Directors to track whether in-course retention, PG R and college persistence is

higher for participants than for non-participants. Starting in the third year of the project, data

will be collected to determine previous participants’ progression toward STEM degree

attainment or attrition. The Project Director will collect data for faculty professional

development showing whether course retention and PG Rs in courses taught/revised by

faculty trained through Adelante Tejas correspond with improved student performance

outcomes, and whether students advised by trained faculty have better outcomes.

Co-Directors will examine data from each institution’s student information system at

least bi-annually concerning overall and in-degree (ST E M) retention, transfer and

graduation. PGR’s for ST E M courses at SA C and Sul Ross, Fall-to-Fall retention of SA C

students and rates of H ispanic graduation at SA C/Sul Ross will also be evaluated over

2009-2010 baselines. Each semester, Sul Ross will give SAC updated numbers of transfers and

information on the success of previous transfers. Information will be shared between SAC and

Sul Ross and used to adjust project strategies for improved service to students.

Qualitative Evaluation: Several qualitative evaluation strategies will be implemented to

measure the effectiveness of Adelante Tejas. The labs and centers to be improved through the


grant will administer satisfaction surveys to students and instructors before and after

improvement has occurred, and on a semester basis thereafter to measure perceived accessibility,

availability and effectiveness of lab/center activities. The success of professional development

activities will be measured by examining instructor outcomes through both faculty participant

surveys and by using student end-of-term evaluations of the courses of participant faculty.

Twice a year Adelante Tejas staff and participating faculty will complete a survey on program

effectiveness, including questions on barriers and facilitators encountered during project

implementation and lessons learned. Student, faculty and staff concerns emerging from these

surveys will be used for program improvement, faculty/tutor training and planning.

At the end of year four, focus groups will be held with students from SAC’s MESA,

MathSpace BioSpot and GeoSpot centers who have spent an average of two hours a week or

more in a Center during that year, from undergraduate users of new instrumentation at Sul

Ross/SA C , and from participants in summer field studies in order to determine if these

interventions improved students’ long-term academic progress. A similar survey will be

distributed to/conducted with samples of students who participated in other Adelante Tejas

activities (including center activities and coursework taken from faculty who received training).

Since the majority of our students are minority students, and many are FGICs, all surveys

used will reflect sensitivity to the cultural/socioeconomic characteristics of our students. To

ensure realistic measurement, non-participant control data will match socioeconomic, ethnic

and/or entrance/placement assessment variables when utilized for comparison.

Adelante Tejas progress reports and data (qualitative and quantitative) will be discussed

at monthly staffings and reported to SAC and Sul Ross Presidents. The Director will solicit

suggestions for improvements or adjustments to the project plan, during implementation, from


Adelante Tejas faculty/staff, SAC/Sul Ross’ Presidents and from students and faculty served.

Analysis and Use of Formative and Summative Evaluation Information: Following are the

roles and responsibilities of those involved in analyzing and disseminating evaluation data:

SAC President – Direct Adelante Tejas Director’s evaluation activities and ensure institutionalization of successful STEM and Articulation activities into regular institutional operations

Adelante Tejas Director at SAC

Supervise data collection, data analysis and presentation of results to support Adelante Tejas progress reports relevant to performance evaluation measures; prepare and present scheduled reports to Internal Monitoring Committees, SAC Quality Enhancement Team (SQET) and SAC’s College Academic Council (Chairs and Directors)

Adelante Tejas Sul Ross Co-Director–

Assist Project Director in collection and analysis of Adelante Tejas data; present results to Sul Ross constituencies

Internal Monitoring Committees

Review reports and present recommendations to SAC/Sul Ross’s President and administrators

SAC SQET)/Sul Ross Executive Committee (President, Provost, VP for Finance)

Review assessments of Adelante Tejas on a regular basis, utilize reports to monitor the progress of project and its impact on the various units of each institution, and assist in institutionalizing the project’s strategies and refining services to students

Project data collected through the evaluation process will be analyzed statistically

whenever possible for quantitative analysis to identify whether participation in project activities

is a predictor of student success. For qualitative analysis, the results of student and faculty

satisfaction surveys will be compiled and analyzed by the Director and Institutional

Effectiveness staff. Every six months, the Adelante Tejas Director and the external evaluator will

review and add observations to analyzed data, including a description of barriers and facilitators

in project implementation, and produce reports on project progress and results. This analysis will

be presented to Adelante Tejas faculty/staff, the Presidents, Internal Monitoring Committees,

STEM deans and chairs, and other HSI administrators. Further analysis may be done in

conjunction with these entities to finalize Year-End Reports, which will be submitted to the

Department of Education in a timely manner.

Conclusion: The investments described in this proposal will increase STEM enrollment,


retention, transfer and graduation for Hispanic and low- income students through improved

access to high quality STEM education, improved educational practices and increased student

support. San Antonio College and Sul Ross State University are committed to the successful

outcomes of this partnership and the future of our students. Adelante Tejas!

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