UCI CalTeach Program awarded $488,000 grant in support of transfer students
The grant will help CalTeach’s effort to recruit, support, and prepare STEM community college students transferring to UCI.
By Marc-Anthony Rosas
May 17, 2023
May 17, 2023
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The Commission on Teaching Credentialing has awarded a $488,000 Integrated Teacher Preparation Programs Grant to the University of California, Irvine CalTeach Program.
The Community College Access for STEM Teaching (CCAST) grant will help build on prior and existing UCI CalTeach efforts to recruit, support, and prepare community college transfer students at UCI to become socially-just math and science teachers. Along with UCI Mathematics Department Vice Chairs of Undergraduate Studies Alessandra Pantano and Roberto Pelayo, UCI CalTeach Program coordinator Kris Houston, who was once a community college transfer student herself, will lead the grant efforts, which will run from 2023 through 2025. UCI CalTeach is a program for undergraduate science and mathematics (STEM) majors interested in exploring a career in education. Through its courses, students learn conceptual teaching skills and practice these methods in local K-12 classrooms. The program offers a unique opportunity for students to complete both a bachelor’s degree and a California teaching credential in four years as an undergraduate. |
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“The hope of the grant is to create more coherence and transparency for community college students on transfer pathways to UCI as a STEM major. The grant will also provide UCI and local community colleges the time and opportunity to come together with the UCI CalTeach program to raise awareness, provide access and for potential transfer students, and ultimately prepare more highly qualified STEM majors in California,” said Houston.
One specific hurdle that potential STEM majors face when transferring to UCI is with the Math 13 course, which is a lower division course required of math majors at UCI but not offered at local community colleges. The course serves as a prerequisite for upper division math courses and sets the foundation for more proof-based math courses. Math majors who transfer into UCI without the course could be set back from graduating within two years.
Houston emphasizes that the “intention of the grant is two-fold around this course: one is to allow for students at local community colleges to cross-enroll in the course, and two is to work with our community college partners to collaborate on opening this course on a campus in which community college students within the same district could enroll in prior to transfer.”
For the UCI CalTeach graduating cohorts of 2022 and 2023, 60% were first- generation college students, 51% came from low-income backgrounds, 42% identified as Asian, and 38% as Latinx. Of these graduating students, only about 15% of School of Education students are community college transfers.
“We recognize that this is a group that we should aim to serve better. We know that a large proportion of students who attend community colleges tend to come from historically marginalized communities,” stated Houston. “We see improving community college pathways as central to our mission and in alignment with the School of Education and university’s mission focused on access and inclusion.”
The UCI CalTeach program was founded in 2008 in partnership between the UCI schools of Education, Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences. Since then, UCI CalTeach continues to develop highly qualified and sought after STEM teachers, many of whom gain employment within a few months of their graduation.
One specific hurdle that potential STEM majors face when transferring to UCI is with the Math 13 course, which is a lower division course required of math majors at UCI but not offered at local community colleges. The course serves as a prerequisite for upper division math courses and sets the foundation for more proof-based math courses. Math majors who transfer into UCI without the course could be set back from graduating within two years.
Houston emphasizes that the “intention of the grant is two-fold around this course: one is to allow for students at local community colleges to cross-enroll in the course, and two is to work with our community college partners to collaborate on opening this course on a campus in which community college students within the same district could enroll in prior to transfer.”
For the UCI CalTeach graduating cohorts of 2022 and 2023, 60% were first- generation college students, 51% came from low-income backgrounds, 42% identified as Asian, and 38% as Latinx. Of these graduating students, only about 15% of School of Education students are community college transfers.
“We recognize that this is a group that we should aim to serve better. We know that a large proportion of students who attend community colleges tend to come from historically marginalized communities,” stated Houston. “We see improving community college pathways as central to our mission and in alignment with the School of Education and university’s mission focused on access and inclusion.”
The UCI CalTeach program was founded in 2008 in partnership between the UCI schools of Education, Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences. Since then, UCI CalTeach continues to develop highly qualified and sought after STEM teachers, many of whom gain employment within a few months of their graduation.
