The Academic Excellence (ACE) Program reduces the achievement gap for minoritized students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at UCSC. We've been doing this successfully for more than 38 years! ACE enhances educational equity through community building, peer-mentorship, and supplemental active learning experiences aligned with academic coursework. Here's why our students love ACE!
For the past three years, we’ve piloted the new ACE Integration Project in which our talented ACE Learning Skills Advisors (LSAs) are embedded into high-stakes gateway course teaching teams with faculty and graduate student teaching assistants (TAs), where they mentor TAs to use inclusive teaching techniques. By helping TAs use ACE-like curriculum and facilitation techniques in mandatory secondary discussion sections, the ACE Integration Project can dramatically increase retention and diversity in STEM at UC Santa Cruz, transforming the lives of thousands of students over the course of each academic year. Now, we wish to expand the integration project to include physics courses, while simultaneously strengthening our collaboration with faculty in math, biology, and chemistry.
With your support, we can achieve the following goals:
Continue the success of ACE integration and spread the impact to physics courses, where our talented learning skills advisors will work with TAs to intentionally design engaging, inclusive section activities.
Expand programmatic capacity so that even more students can benefit from the ACE experience.
Give students even more opportunities to build their professional and social networks, advancing their career preparedness.
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