Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is an urban, research-intensive institution that has experienced rapid growth over the past decade, resulting in a 2.5-fold increase in the number of BS degrees in the natural sciences.
This has catalyzed an effort to rethink how we instruct our gateway science courses. We are focusing our aspirations on creating broad, inclusive communities among students and faculty in our science programs.
Our working idea
The stronger community structures we have, the greater our capacity for inclusion. Students who truly feel part of a program will be more likely to persist and take advantage of community resources. We anticipate more than 75 faculty and 7,000 students from our institutions will be impacted. We will test this theory by pursuing the following goals:
