Summer Advancement
SIF182 Summer Advancement
Project Manager: Rachel Most and Elizabeth Ozment
Approved: Summer 2021
The purpose of this award is to facilitate the transition of low-income, first-generation, and minority students from Piedmont Virginia Community College to UVA. This funding is repurposed from the SIF156 Bridges award.
Project Dates: 02/01/2022-01/31/2025
Total Funding: $328,530
Executive Summary:
The Summer Advancement Program aids the University of Virginia’s (UVA) continued commitment to fostering a welcoming and inclusive academic environment that enhances the achievements of minority, first-generation and low-income transfer students from Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC). This proposal is in direct response to President Ryan’s 2030 Strategic Plan to cultivate the most vibrant community in higher education by being a strong partner with and good neighbor to the Charlottesville region (SPLAN 2019), with recognition that the University must support transfer student pathways if it wishes to recruit and retain exceptional under-represented students in our programs. We will not be able to close achievement gaps, especially in the sciences, among low-income, first-generation, and minority students without addressing attrition rates among transfer students. Expanding early opportunities for community college transfer students to form relationships with peers and faculty in the classroom will nurture a more welcoming environment and address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Three basic goals of this program are to:
• Support the transfer pathway from PVCC to UVA as an affordable and excellent education for under-represented Virginians by accelerating student transitions into upper-division coursework.1
• Expedite major prerequisite completion among under-represented students who enter as transfer students from PVCC through high-impact instructional practices.
• Expand early opportunities for entering transfer students to form advising and mentoring relationships with peers, and faculty.
Progress:
The Summer Advancement Program is an academic bridge program for admitted community college transfer students from Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC). The program accelerates the 2-year college to 4- year university academic and social transition and addresses issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion by expanding early opportunities for transfer students to form relationships with peers and faculty while enrolled in summer coursework that fulfills general education requirements and major prerequisites. The Summer Advancement Program aids the University of Virginia’s (UVA) continued commitment to fostering a welcoming and inclusive academic environment that enhances the achievements of minority, first-generation and low-income transfer students from Piedmont Virginia Community College. In doing so, this project responds to the priorities outlined in President Ryan’s 2030 Strategic Plan to cultivate the most vibrant community in higher education by being a strong partner with and good neighbor to the Charlottesville region, with recognition that the University must support transfer student pathways if it wishes to recruit and retain exceptional under-represented students in our programs.
Forty total students participated in the Summer Advancement Program 2022-2023, and their identities and academic interests are diverse. Each participant completed 4.00-6.00 credits of summer session coursework, with the majority of courses from mathematics and natural science departments. The proportion of underrepresented minorities and first-generation students within Summer Advancement Program cohorts exceeds UVA’s total undergraduate population, including 82% entering third-years transfers, 32% first- generation students, and 26% identifying as Latinx or Black. Among these students, biology and psychology are the most prevalent intended majors, and 20% self-identified as pre-med or pre-law bound.