Check out quick snapshots from each propagation subgroup: what they have working on and what's next.
Hidden Work
Invisible Labor team members are finalizing three journal manuscripts; manuscripts are anticipated to be submitted for peer review by the year’s end. Each manuscript highlights different components of hidden work undertaken by a co-equitable transfer partnership we pseudonymized as STEM UP. For this project, our team defined a co-equitable community college-university transfer partnerships as one that counters traditional institutional hierarchies, values the distinct strengths of all partner institutions, and prioritizes mutual institutional learning.
PROSPECT PLCs
The PROSPECT project has created Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) across our hub, connecting experts from associates- and bachelor-granting institutions to learn together about common topics/challenges for their S-STEMs. Over the course of three and a half project years, our collaborative has co-created cross-institutional PLCs in which members actively engage in regular, collaborative discussions and activities to share and develop strategies for supporting STEM transfer students.
The PROSPECT PLCs propagation group aims to tell the story of these PLCs. We seek to understand how PROSPECT created and sustained these cross-institutional PLCs, how PLC interaction unfolded across multiple years, what seemed to help or hinder PLC interaction, and what we have learned from this experience that others can apply. Our group has met biweekly since late spring 2026. We are using a phenomenological approach, in which we are employing document analysis of all of the PROSPECT meeting notes. Those meeting notes provide a record of intentions, motivations, goals, challenges that arose in the development of the PLCs, as well as a logistic tracking of how the PLC interactions evolved across multiple years. We are developing an educational journey map to visually represent the collaborative group’s experience over time with the PLCs.
STEM Efficacy
The group has met biweekly throughout the summer and into the fall and has made substantial progress toward finalizing an item pool for a STEM Self-Efficacy scale. For the purposes of this work, STEM self-efficacy is defined as students’ beliefs about their ability to perform STEM practices and understand STEM content. The items reflect eight attributes of STEM self-efficacy: (1) confidence in successfully accomplishing specific STEM-related tasks; (2) a record of success in STEM coursework, projects, or problem solving; (3) exposure to relatable, positive role models in STEM fields; (4) receipt of encouraging, specific feedback about STEM abilities; (5) resilience after STEM setbacks and viewing challenges as opportunities for learning and growth; (6) intrinsic motivation to engage in STEM learning and activities; (7) observing peers successfully tackle STEM challenges; and (8) a developed STEM identity. The team is currently integrating feedback from subject-matter experts before finalizing the items for data collection.
Arts-based Poetic Transcription
The arts-based propagation team is working in two directions. One: Karen shared an extensive set of slides that showcase her mathematics and computer science inspired art; Karen has been highlighting the ways in which some of her art can depict partnership characteristics and dynamics such as power hierarchies, bi-directional relationships, communication, and trust. Two: Camilla, Vashti, and Wendy are working on a poetic transcription from interview transcripts, focusing on excerpts that feature partnership trust (how it was developed, how it is sustained). The arts-based team overall led a symposium submission to CSCC focused on arts-based and other alternative research methods. None of us have formal training in arts-based research methods, so shout out to the whole team for willingly exploring these new spaces. Here's a short excerpt of one poetic transcription:
I think the biggest lasting things
that we have right now
are the pathways
that structure
the knowledge
the partnerships
we developed from this
Transfer Champions
This team explores the characteristics, strategies, and institutional impact of key advocates for transfer students across S-STEM projects, with the goal of developing practical resources for future champions. The groups is currently working on a podcast-type product.