Abstract:

Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) is a small, private, undergraduate-level minority-serving institution located in New Orleans, LA, USA. It ranks highly in awarding bachelor’s degrees in STEM to African Americans and tops the nation in the number of its graduates who go on to obtain doctoral degrees in the life sciences. Over 70% of its incoming freshmen join as STEM majors, with nearly 40% Biology alone. The University was founded specifically to offer opportunities to young men and women of color who otherwise would not be able to acquire a college education. Thus, students considered ‘at-risk’ (based on high school GPAs and SAT/ACT scores) but who otherwise exhibit the desire and will to succeed are accepted at XULA. Based on internal data, our ‘at-risk’ students often come from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, thereby having restricted access to opportunities that would prepare them well for a college. In addition, financial burdens force many to take on extra jobs, leaving little time to study. Factors like these negatively impact academic progress and result in students leaving STEM. At XULA, such student-losses are highest during the freshman-sophomore level transition and although to lesser degrees, they continue during the 2nd-3rd year transition, eventually resulting in lower graduation rates. These problems, however, are not unique to XULA; rather represent the challenges faced in higher education today. In contrast, demands for STEM graduates continues to increase each year. In this context, recent reports have made “calls for action” for developing innovative and effective teaching and assessment tools to address these needs and increase the numbers of STEM graduates, particularly minorities and women. In response, at XULA, we have directed significant efforts to revamp our science curriculum to make it more integrative, interactive and student focused.

Using Biology as a model system, upon analyzing gaps in our students’ knowledge in the context our current curricular structure, we identified the following competencies to focus on:
1) Applications of the scientific method,
2) Quantitative skills,
3) Data analysis,
4) Bioinformatics,
5) Biophysics,
6) Biochemistry
7) Lab skills central to biological research.

Next, faculty developed two new freshman-level courses to introduce these competencies. The courses, entitled Foundations of Biology I and II respectively, are the first of their kind at XULA with integrative, experiential learning and multi-level evaluations and student-feedback opportunities. This communication will describe the cost-effective activities and assessment tasks we have developed to familiarize students with interdisciplinary concepts and scientific competencies. Multi-year data analyses and feedback from faculty teaching upper level courses show the positive impacts of this curricular reform on student learning and persistence in Biology.

Acknowledgements:
This study was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant # 52007572 to XULA.

Keywords:

STEM retention, underrepresented minorities, competency-based education, assessment, quantitative skills, data analysis, curricular reforms.