2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The overarching goals of the Kansas Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (KS-LSAMP) project (EDU/EES) is to establish a sustainable pathway for underrepresented minority students in STEM disciplines in the state of Kansas and to significantly increase the number of underrepresented minority students graduating with STEM baccalaureate degrees in the state of Kansas. The project is led by Kansas State University, a large land grant research institution. The alliance institutions included newly added Wichita University and five community colleges, Barton Community College, Dodge City Community College, Donnelly College, Garden City Community College, and Seward County Community College, all of which are minority-serving institutions with two-year programs that are transferable into STEM majors at Kansas State University and Wichita State University.

The purpose this paper was to examine how STEM faculty and staff at alliance community college institutions perceive the implementation of KS-LSAMP program. We specifically focused on the perceived strengths, obstacles, and possible solutions throughout the implementation phases, which offers insights as we aim to strengthen the institutionalization of the project across all partner institutions.

A qualitative study was conducted with multi-site focus group interviews. In Spring 2024, a purposive sample of 21 STEM faculty and staff from three community college alliance institutions were selected. These faculty and staff have been heavily involved in the KS-LSAMP program by recruiting students into STEM fields, teaching core STEM courses, and offering STEM-specific extracurricular activities at their respective institutions.

Multiple members on the PI team visited three community college alliance institutions, Dodge City Community College, Donnelly College, and Garden City Community College during Spring 2024 semester. At each site, a semi-structured focus group interview was conducted with the STEM faculty and staff. Each focus group interview lasted about an hour. The interview protocol was reviewed by the PI team before the site visits. Detailed notes were taken for all focus group interviews. The content analysis was conducted following the five-step process recommended by Creswell’s (2014) – organizing data; gaining a comprehensive understanding of the collected information; engaging in the coding process to identify patterns and recurring themes; categorizing the identified themes; and interpreting the data within the context of the research purpose.

There are three major themes in the findings: a) The first theme related to the strengths in the existing programs. Participants acknowledged a variety of support programs and activities (e.g., Bridges, Noyce) that exist in their institutions and a large group of students actively use tutoring services and STEM clubs. b) The barriers to students transferring from a 2-year institution to a 4-year institution revolve around lack of or insufficient communication about the transfer process and variation across institutions’ academic programs. c) The third theme related to potential solutions to the perceived barriers. Participants expressed the need to have a clear and well-articulated transfer process as well as the importance to connect 2-year students with successful transfer students enrolled at 4-year institutions.