Community College Pathways to STEM Degrees and Careers for Women and Underrepresented Minorities

The NSF has recently awarded a three-year grant to Lois Joy, senior research associate, SMP. This Gender in Science and Engineering grant will research community college pathways to STEM education and occupations for women. The research goals of the project are to identify the individual and institutional factors that contribute to women’s successful recruitment, progress, and completion of community college STEM degrees and certificates. For our analysis, we will use the nationally representative and longitudinal National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Beginning Post-Secondary Surveys (BPS) and case studies of four STEM community college programs at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester and Springfield Technical Community College.

By delineating what is working and what is lacking in community college systems of support for women in STEM as well as the factors that predict STEM community college progress, our research will enable educators and administrators to best allocate scarce resources for program, practice, and policy development.