« SAGE 2YC Summer 2020 June Workshop - Team Presentations Session 6 Comments

El Paso Community College Presentation Comments  

I'm from a border town on the northern border and we have the same problem with lack of diversity but it reflects our community. We have struggled with how do we increase diversity but if the source pool isn't there what do you do? We decided to focus on gender diversity and income and first-generation college students.

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edittextuser=137825 post_id=44153 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Great Success rates, and I love that you looked at your core assessment. THere are many types of diversity beyond race/ethnicity - you touched on several, including military status and 1st gen. You should also get socio-economic indicators from your IR folks and age, which might be helpful.
Since you dont trust the majors info, maybe there is a course-taking pattern that would help you determine "real" majors?

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edittextuser=57 post_id=44154 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

I feel like you did a very nice job diving into the data for your student population and course results. The presentation was very nice and easy to follow.

I was struck by the differences you see in numbers of male vs. female students because that is not something that we see at our school. I would be curious if there are other strategies you can include to challenge cultural norms in your community. 2 of your 3 teammembers are female. They obviously see female geologists, so I am thinking about what other ways you could help them to see that geology is a possibility for female students. Perhaps you can provide information to the counselors who are shuttling students into classes - they may be bending to cultural norms themselves.

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edittextuser=1053 post_id=44155 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Yes indeed. It is hard to pull from something that you do not have.

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edittextuser=18318 post_id=44156 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Interesting to have these data and great to bring in the institutional data on online vs F2F. I was interested in the differences/similarities and the issue of team work being more in the online courses.

I think your focus on scientist spotlights and working with families and a focus on working on issues in the community (e.g., water resources and management is great) I wondered about whether adding some more metacognitive work would be useful? Though need to be aware of keeping the focus you want.

I was also curious about the work with students in the militaty including dependents.

Thanks!

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edittextuser=5 post_id=44157 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Nice presentation. It is hard to attract a diverse audience when your college is representative of an area that is not diverse. But it depends on how you define diversity. If you define diversity as non-white, then you are very diverse. But I know you want a lot of different types of people.

Do you have any data on the demographics of the area, compared with the demographics of the college? Does the college recruit in local high schools? How many male and female faculty are there? Could some of the female faculty go into the high schools with the recruiter?

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edittextuser=1197 post_id=44158 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Erin Doran just edited a New Directions for Community Colleges on Latinx students that may be of interest to you.

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edittextuser=29495 post_id=44159 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Originally Posted by Eric Baer


Great Success rates, and I love that you looked at your core assessment. THere are many types of diversity beyond race/ethnicity - you touched on several, including military status and 1st gen. You should also get socio-economic indicators from your IR folks and age, which might be helpful.
Since you dont trust the majors info, maybe there is a course-taking pattern that would help you determine "real" majors?



for sure, we do have our majors courses where we get a much better picture of the students that have really continued with the program but will need to request that from IR

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edittextuser=8999 post_id=44160 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Regarding diversity: I understand that you want to increase diversity (attract students from all different backgrounds) but if the demographic population is proportional to the student body population, you *are* meeting this criterion. You don't have many black or white students in the pool to begin with, BUT it doesn't hurt to reach out to them.

Regarding gender: I agree you should have more female students take these courses (I don't know offhand if we have this problem, I believe we run 50:50) so yes, it is great that you want to target them because women are awesome :) That being said, if there are cultural implications inhibiting them from going into geoscience, i'd look at the trend in other sciences (biology, chemistry) and if they have higher female enrollments, try targeting them as double majors? If there are any female based 'clubs' on campus, can you invite them to a meet and greet or do some advertising with them? Set up tables at orientations and advertise with female students.

You may increase diversity and women if you address the veteran status-- all veterans have experience with geology one way or another and they might realize they like/are good at/can apply past knowledge to maybe majoring in geology (and they don't know its an actual major).

I'd look at those success rates for grade inflation-- if it's too good to be true, there might be something there.

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edittextuser=9712 post_id=44161 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Originally Posted by Pamela Eddy


Erin Doran just edited a New Directions for Community Colleges on Latinx students that may be of interest to you.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15360733

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edittextuser=57 post_id=44162 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Success rates, specially for African-American students are a little worrisome, do you know how many dropped out vs stayed and failed?

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edittextuser=8999 post_id=44164 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Originally Posted by Deniz Ballero


Regarding diversity: I understand that you want to increase diversity (attract students from all different backgrounds) but if the demographic population is proportional to the student body population, you *are* meeting this criterion. You don't have many black or white students in the pool to begin with, BUT it doesn't hurt to reach out to them.

Regarding gender: I agree you should have more female students take these courses (I don't know offhand if we have this problem, I believe we run 50:50) so yes, it is great that you want to target them because women are awesome :) That being said, if there are cultural implications inhibiting them from going into geoscience, i'd look at the trend in other sciences (biology, chemistry) and if they have higher female enrollments, try targeting them as double majors? If there are any female based 'clubs' on campus, can you invite them to a meet and greet or do some advertising with them? Set up tables at orientations and advertise with female students.

You may increase diversity and women if you address the veteran status-- all veterans have experience with geology one way or another and they might realize they like/are good at/can apply past knowledge to maybe majoring in geology (and they don't know its an actual major).

I'd look at those success rates for grade inflation-- if it's too good to be true, there might be something there.



We used to get more female students when geology was required for the education majors but since the dropped the requirement at the 4-year institution our female enrollment dropped

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edittextuser=8999 post_id=44174 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

Originally Posted by Pamela Gore


Nice presentation. It is hard to attract a diverse audience when your college is representative of an area that is not diverse. But it depends on how you define diversity. If you define diversity as non-white, then you are very diverse. But I know you want a lot of different types of people.

Do you have any data on the demographics of the area, compared with the demographics of the college? Does the college recruit in local high schools? How many male and female faculty are there? Could some of the female faculty go into the high schools with the recruiter?



The community college is a very good representation of El Paso as a whole. The college does recruit at the local high schools. This is one place we are planning on making an appearance. Faculty demographics are pretty good. We have 3 full time male/3 full time female. However, since we have the 5 campuses the students are not seeing this. Example my campus sees me: white female.

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edittextuser=18318 post_id=44175 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14346

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« SAGE 2YC Summer 2020 June Workshop - Team Presentations Session 6 Comments