The purpose of this assessment was to document the Life Sciences Division's efforts to achieve the following Team WIGs/divisional goals:
1) Increase faculty & student engagement through collaboration and experiential learning opportunities. (AY 25-26).
2) Increase BIO Faculty awareness of Allied Health Career Pathways (AY 24-25).
The research literature continues to highlight the need for colleges to provide undergraduate students with hands-on, authentic learning experiences. Historically, Life Sciences Division faculty members have actively engaged students in a wide range of experiential learning opportunities. The purpose of the Team WIGs were to formally capture the type and number of experiential learning engagements.
- Support EMCC and the division's desire to provide students with real-world experiences.
- Provide a platform where students can engage in activities and learning that help them explore career pathways and build next-step-ready skills.
- Increase student engagement.
- Support student retention and completion.
- Prepare students for the workplace.
- Support EMCC’s three pillars of experimental learning: work-based experiences, project-based learning, and undergraduate research.
- Capture cross-disciplinary and cross-functional area collaborations
Historically, Life Science faculty members have been involved in a variety of research and non-research-based projects with Majors, Non-Majors, and Allied Health pathway students. During AY 24-25 & 25-26, residential faculty members and OYOs wanted to formally document these on- and off-campus collaborations and experimental learning opportunities. These experiences fell into several broad engagement categories (i) group advisement sessions (ii) outside speakers engagement (iii) campus events e.g. campus blood drives, Earth Forward (iv) group events e.g, LS Division Open House (v) in one-on-one meetings between instructor & student (vi) STEM outreach e.g. Tres Rios Festival, and (vii) undergraduate research.
Within the Life Science Division, many faculty members have research backgrounds, and as a result, the division has developed and continues to seek opportunities to engage students in experiential learning while increasing faculty members exposure to experiences that expand their learning. Over a two year period, experiential learning opportunities included but were not limited to; Animal Ambassadors Community Outreach, BUZZ: Native Bee Biodiversity Survey Project, EMCC ROV teams, Macroinvertebrate UREs, Mexican Gray Wolf Conservation Advocacy Campaign Project, Allied Health Career Panel, Burrowing Owls UREs, BIO160 Honors Taste of Innovation Showcase, LS Division Open House, Identifying Antibiotic Producing Bacteria UREs, EMCC Pop-Up Seed Library, EMCC Community Garden, Pollinator-Wildflower Research Initiative UREs, Alzheimer's Disease and Risk Factors: Exploring AI Tools in Literature Review URE, collaborations with Nursing faculty members including visits to the Nursing-Sim Lab and support for campus Blood Drives.
In AY24-25, one of the Life Sciences Division's Team WIG focused on increasing the BIO faculty's awareness of allied health programs. In AY25-26, the Life Sciences Division took their Team WIG one step further, aiming to increase faculty & student engagement through collaboration and experiential learning opportunities across all BIO-related pathways: Non-Majors, Majors & Allied Health. The intent of the Team WIGs were to document the multiple ways in which Life Sciences residential faculty and OYO’s engage with students to create meaningful experiential learning opportunities over and above what is achievable in a traditional classroom environment.
During AY24-25, the division recorded 131 total experiential learning opportunities. Of these experiences, 20 were allied health-related, 15 were related to general student engagement, and 96 were STEM majors-related experiential learning opportunities. In AY25-26, the division expanded its reach and documented 152 total experiential learning opportunities. Of these experiences, 12 were allied health-related, 18 were general student engagement-related, and 122 STEM Majors-related experiential learning opportunities were documented.