Engaging community college students in physics research

Recruiting talent and fostering innovation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines demands that we attract, educate, and retain a larger and more diverse cohort of students. In this regard, Community Colleges (CC), serving a disproportionate number of underrepresented minority, female and nontraditional students, represent a pool of potential talent that, due to a misguided perception of its students as being less capable, often remains untapped. We will present our strategies to attract and support the academic advancement of CC students in the STEM fields through our NSF-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates program entitled Internships in Nanosystems Science Engineering and Technology (INSET). For more than a decade, INSET has offered a physics research projects to CC students. The key components of INSET success are: 1) the involvement of CC faculty with a strong interest in promoting student success in all aspects of program planning and execution; 2) the design of activities that provide the level of support that students might need because of lack of confidence and/or unfamiliarity with a university environment; and 3) setting clear goals and high performance expectations.