Nourishing STEM Student Success via a TEAM-Based Advisement Model

Abstract

LaGuardia Community College is an international leader recognized for developing and successfully implementing initiatives and educating underserved diverse students. LaGuardia's STEM students are holistically advised by a team of dedicated faculty and staff members from different departments and divisions. As an innovative approach to advisement, students are first connected to an advising team member in their discipline-based first-year seminar and consequently guided by other cross-institutional advisement team members to ensure their continued success. In this article, we share our policies, processes, and promising practices in advising STEM student at an urban public institution. We present arguments that address and support five pillars for student success: 1) the student matters, 2) supportive culture matters, 3) effective communication matters, 4) data matters, and, 5) clear pathways and effective advisement matters. Finally, we present empirical evidence that show positive results in terms of students' retention. Specifically, there was an improvement in the actual Fall 2015 to 2016 return rate of STEM students, from 62.9% to 64.6%. Our scaled practice demonstrates the value of collaborative team-based advisement efforts as supported through professional development can improve community college STEM student persistence when the above five pillars are fully espoused by the institution.

Persisting beyond acculturative barriers toward a baccalaureate degree: international, non-native-English-speaking student retention from year 1 to year 2 during a pandemic

“…In the case of advising, Primary Driver 4 is an "application of clear pathways with monitoring systems'' used to compose a comprehensive system for advising (Kinzie & Kuh, 2017, p. 25). Intrusive, team-based, and interactive models of advising using the student success framework were considered as no one specific style existed to support the retention of international students (Heisserer & Parette, 2002;Mohammed, 2016;Polnariev et al, 2017). Kinzie and Kuh's (2017) reenvisioned student success framework, provided support for these models (p. 24).…”

“…Furthermore, advisors must be good communicators and able to refer to appropriate offices. With these skills in mind, researchers identified three advising models that are useful for at-risk students: intrusive, interactive, and team-based (Polnariev et al, 2017;Heisserer & Parette, 2002;Mohammed, 2016).…”

“…Building upon the use of both intrusive and interactive advising, researchers have suggested a team-based model (Polnariev et al, 2017). LaGuardia Community College in the City of New York system piloted this approach and presented it as an action research case study to encourage collaboration across the curriculum and advise students within their chosen major in a learner-centered way (Polnariev et al, 2017).…”

“…Building upon the use of both intrusive and interactive advising, researchers have suggested a team-based model (Polnariev et al, 2017). LaGuardia Community College in the City of New York system piloted this approach and presented it as an action research case study to encourage collaboration across the curriculum and advise students within their chosen major in a learner-centered way (Polnariev et al, 2017). With a robust history of educating underserved populations, LaGuardia sought to create a dynamic advising model for students in STEM majors and utilized a team-based action research method whereby faculty and staff from admissions to student affairs shared the responsibility of advising (Polnariev et al, 2017).…”

“…LaGuardia Community College in the City of New York system piloted this approach and presented it as an action research case study to encourage collaboration across the curriculum and advise students within their chosen major in a learner-centered way (Polnariev et al, 2017). With a robust history of educating underserved populations, LaGuardia sought to create a dynamic advising model for students in STEM majors and utilized a team-based action research method whereby faculty and staff from admissions to student affairs shared the responsibility of advising (Polnariev et al, 2017). Project leaders initially matched students with their chosen discipline advisor during a first-year seminar and then transitioned them to other community members during their careers.…”