Building Capacity to Develop Community-Engaged STEM Learning as an Institutional Transformative Mechanism

This project aims to serve the national interest by integrating STEM learning with community-oriented problem solving, evidence-based decision making, critical thinking, and the development of civic duties. The project plans to build institutional capacity to create an immersive environment of community-engaged learning (CEL) and to transform STEM education. Working collaboratively with community partners, students will use their knowledge and skills in STEM fields to address issues facing many minority communities, particularly inequity issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic rejuvenation of affected communities. This project will directly tackle the challenges faced by minority and other underserved students, including food insecurity and mental health issues, to enhance their resilience, confidence, and persistence to succeed in STEM fields. The project will have a positive impact on minority and immigrant communities in areas of health and healthcare disparity, environmental and nutritional inequity, social justice, and equal rights.

The project will engage an interdisciplinary team of STEM faculty, social scientists, and student affairs staff to provide students with an immersive environment through CEL courses in both STEM and humanities, arts, and social science (HASS) fields, which will lead to sustained change and a powerful advancement in STEM education. Interdisciplinarity will be a key component in this project, as the HASS courses will allow students to understand complex societal and community issues as they apply STEM knowledge to address those issues. The STEM solutions will be placed in the social and cultural contexts of the communities. The objectives of this project include 1) to create an immersive CEL environment at NJCU that offers broad CEL-focused courses and curricula in STEM and HASS to transform the student experience in undergraduate STEM education; 2) to build a holistic support system to empower faculty, students, and communities to embrace CEL and bolster students' success in STEM; 3) to promote NJCU as a prominent "steward of place" that benefits and contributes to the minority communities with scientific and evidence-based approaches to meet the community needs; and 4) to conduct research on interdisciplinarity and community-institution partnership, establishing evidence-based best practices for CEL and catalyzing sustainable transformation across the university and surrounding communities. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities. This project is also supported by the NSF IUSE: HSI program, which seeks to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.