University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
To develop an innovative postsecondary pathway to STEM graduate education for domestic Black, Latinx/a/o, and Indigenous students from Wilbur Wright College to UIUC
As of January 2022, Illinois state law guarantees admission to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for all students from the Community College of Chicago system with a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0. This grant supports a partnership between UIUC and Wilbur Wright College, a Hispanic Serving community college in Chicago, to help Wilbur Wright students take advantage of this new law, increase the number of Wilbur Wright students who transfer to UIUC, and enhance the educational resources available to these students, particularly those interested in STEM, so that they are well-prepared to succeed as their education continues.Primary activities funded through this grant include presentations for Wilbur Wright students and workshops for Wilbur Wright faculty on transfer and graduate opportunities; the launch of a one-week summer exploration program for Wilbur Wright students at UIUC; expanded professional development offerings and supports for Wilbur Wright students in the Transfer Pathways program, an annual STEM conference at Wilbur Wright; and sponsorships for 8-10 Wilber Wright students per year to participate in UIUC’s GearUp engineering education enrichment program. In addition, UIUC will use qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze lessons learned and promising practices from the collaboration and disseminate them to inform similar partnerships at other universities.