Faculty workshops for development of course-based undergraduate research experiences fosters community and academic success in transfer students

As the number of transfer students from community colleges increases in many 4-yr institutions, the development of transfer-specific programming has become a priority. Transfer students often do not have the same opportunities or time to form communities with students or mentorship experiences with faculty. Although they see the value of research and forming a community, they feel like they must take a heavy science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) load to graduate on time (Hanaeuer DI, Graham MJ, Jacobs-Sera D, Garlena RA, Russell DA, Sivanathan V, Asai DJ, Hatfull GF. CBE Life Sci Educ 21: ar38, 2022). In addition, developing a first-semester curriculum for transfer students can be difficult due to the wide range of coursework they bring. Course-based research experiences (CUREs) are an opportunity to engage transfer students in their first semester, forming an important part of their introduction to an often larger university. This allows them to form a cohort and interact with faculty in a small lab setting and assures a mechanism for course credit toward graduation. Training faculty to develop or revise lab courses through workshops that emphasize the value of CUREs has led us to increase student-faculty and faculty-faculty interactions while fostering student success. Several faculty have provided brief overviews of research questions that can be used to form the basis of a CURE. One example from our neurobiology faculty is presented here. Expanding these CURE options and the number of faculty able to teach these courses has increased our transfer students’ sense of community.NEW & NOTEWORTHY As the transfer student population increases at 4-yr universities, it is critical to develop a pathway for them to access relevant courses, form a community, and have research opportunities from their first semester. Designing course-based research experiences (CUREs) specifically for this student population will allow transfer students to transition with their cohort into their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. This article describes how to train faculty through workshops and expand CURE options at a large public university.