Cohort 3 Leadership Extension

Dan Ferandez of the team from Anne Arundel Community College participated in the extension of Cohort 3 that focused in helping Change Agents improve their leadership skills.

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Leadership Accomplishments and Lessons Learned

• Tapped into the power of teamwork to accomplish program goals; partnered with other faculty and students
• Mentored students and junior faculty members
• Increased participation in college, regional, and national professional conferences

Activity Report

Activity Plan

Our plan was to enhance the broadened participation and facilitation of students' professional pathways in STEM, specifically focused on the Earth Sciences. At Anne Arundel Community College (AACC), we have been trying to coordinate with nearby 4-year universities in the coordination of our students graduating with an Associates degree in Earth Science to a smooth seamless transfer to a Meteorology, Geology, or Oceanography Bachelor's degree. At this point, we have been working with the University of Maryland (B.S. Atmospheric & Oceanic Science) and Towson University (B.S. Geology). We looked at hosting virtual workshops for our AACC students to get acquainted with the Meteorology & Geology programs at University of Maryland & Towson University. We planned on having the workshops to include transfer representatives from AACC and the 4-year universities, along with any available AACC graduates currently at those universities. Our hope is to increase our numbers of AACC Earth Science transfer students to those universities.

Activities we planned included:

• Continuing our conversations with our main faculty points of contact for transfers at University of Maryland & Towson University.
• Inviting recent AACC graduates who are now at one of the 4-year institutions to give a presentation (by video or by virtual sessions) about their university experiences.
• Within our Earth Science courses (Oceanography, Geology, Meteorology, Climate Change) continuing our "advertising" of Earth Science discoveries, careers, talks, & scientists, to our students.
• Within our Earth Science courses, include 'Earth Scientist Spotlights' assignments & activities to help students better possibly connect with scientists who may have similar backgrounds & situations.
• During our AACC Earth Science Club sessions, also include advertising of Earth Science discoveries, careers, talks, & scientists to all student members of the Club.

Results

Per our initial plans:

• Within each of our class sections, we continue to inform & advertise to our Oceanography, Geology, & Meteorology students opportunities that exist in the Earth Sciences for future academic & career plans.
• Within our Earth Science courses, all instructors continue to include 'Earth Scientist Spotlights' assignments and activities to help students better connect with scientists who may have similar backgrounds & situations as themselves.
• Earth Scientist Spotlights are featured in each weekly session of our Earth Science Club activities.
• On 04 May 2021, primarily through coordination by the AACC Earth Science Club, we hosted (as part of the club's penultimate meeting for the semester) a session featuring 3 students who graduated from AACC. These students shared their experiences & insights between AACC and their 4-year universities. The students shared their stories followed by a question and answer period. A total of 24 people attended our virtual session including club advisors, club student officers, AACC student advisor, Science Department program assistant, interested students. Of particular note, our main point of contact at Towson University was also present. He was able to supplement information to the students about Towson University & its Geology program to all those interested.
• An upcoming benefit is that we have preliminary plans to have a meeting at Towson University with Geology faculty & staff, to meet new faculty members & to get re-acquainted with previous faculty members we met. We may also make plans to see if we could coordinate some activities between our student clubs. Our contact is checking on Towson University Geology students and alumni from the last few years to pick out a few AACC students and let us know where they've ended up for jobs, etc.
• We've also been invited to give a presentation at Towson University regarding our work in Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion initiatives that were part of our previous overall SAGE 2YC project.
• We continue to attend student University of Maryland Senior Atmospheric & Oceanic Prospectus & Final Senior Atmospheric & Oceanic Project Defenses. It appears we have at least 1 AACC student who has been accepted and will be transferring into the University of Maryland Atmospheric & Oceanic program.

Lessons Learned

Given the restrictions over the past several months requiring everything to be done remotely, we were able to accomplish our main goal of a virtual session featuring 3 Earth Science students who graduated from AACC. We were fortunate to have enthusiastic Earth Science Club student officers who were big contributors to planning the session, plus extremely fortunate to have our 3 student presenters who were able to find time within their schedules to share their experiences to aspiring Earth Science majors.

Each of the 3 student presenters specifically mentioned how much Professor Joel Moore influenced them in their studies; additionally Professor Moore has invited us to give a presentation at Towson University on our previous work with Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion this coming Fall 2021 semester.

We had limited feedback (from 5 participants) about their thoughts about our club session; perhaps if done again, we would provide more incentives to participate in the survey, or make it less optional.

One part of our overall plan that we were not able to directly accomplish, was to provide more details of the Earth Science major & transfer possibilities to the AACC academic advisors & counselors. Though we had an AACC academic advisor & counselor at many of our club weekly sessions, we had been looking at giving a more detailed focused informational session with the AACC academic advisors & counselors about the Earth Science major.

The Earth Science major is still new at AACC, so we will be needing to start gathering more information about those student numbers & statistics through our office of Planning, Research, and Institutional Assessment. I still need to work more closely with that office in order to begin evaluating success rates, etc.