Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
888 N EUCLID AVE
TUCSON,AZ 85719-4824
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Pathways into Veterinary Medicine: A Community College Entry to Success Scholars (ACCESS) program, will engage students enrolled in community colleges across the state of Arizona to support their successful entry into the veterinary degree program. Arizona is in dire need of addressing the veterinarian shortage. Ranked 5th in demand for veterinarians in the country, Arizona is experiencing a decline of large animal veterinarians and increase in pet ownership. 2023 Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 91.4% of US veterinarians are White, 4.3% Asian, 2.2% Black, and 0.5% Hispanic/Latinx. The UA-CVM is committed to recruiting diverse talent into veterinary sciences. UA-CVM proposes a novel approach to attracting more students into the profession. In partnership with community colleges, UA-CVM will implement a series of veterinary sciences-related workshops using virtual technology engaging students from rural, border and tribal communities. We will employ virtual online educational activities using Augmented Reality (AR) and 360-degree video telecasting in novel ways, providing access to advanced technology to increase community college students' preparation to enter veterinary sciences. A series of academic workshops will deploy educational innovations that are timely and relevant to enhance interest in UA-CVM. Workshops will offer mentorship and advising, while exposing students to an array of careers in veterinary profession. A summer intensive in-person program will offer hands on clinical and professional skills development and rigorous academic coursework to build a competitive applicant pool of community college students' successful entry into veterinary sciences.
Animal Health Component
60%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
60%
Developmental
30%
Goals / Objectives
Pathways into Veterinary Medicine: A Community College Entry to Success Scholars (ACCESS) Program seeks to address the workforce shortage of veterinarians in rural and border communities of Arizona, by recruiting and retaining students from USDA high priority areas as veterinarians. UArizona College of Veterinary Medicine (UA_CVM) will recruit highly qualified students from Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI), Central Arizona College (CAC) and Cochise College (CC) located in Pinal and Cochise County. ACCESS will offer Virtual Reality (VR) educational activities to engage students across Arizona in novel ways. These educational innovations will be academically relevant and enhance students' preparation to enter UA-CVM. Workshops will offer mentorship, academic and CVM admissions advising, and an array of experiences in veterinary medicine. A UA-CVM summer intensive in-person program will offer clinical experiential learning, professional skills development, and rigorous academic coursework. ACCESS will build a competitive applicant pool of community college students to successfully enter veterinary medicine, contributing to the health and well-being of rural Arizona's animals and economy.Recruit 10 scholars underrepresented in veterinary medicine and from Arizona's rural and border communities.Prepare a competitive applicant pool that applies to the UArizona College Veterinary Medicine.Provide scholars' rigorous course work and clinical professional experience.Develop scholars' professional identities as veterinarians.Develop scholars' academic and personal skills, including communication and well-being skills.
Project Methods
Efforts:Formal classroom instruction, laboratory instruction, clinical practicum experiences; simulations and use of different modalities for learning,curriculum development ofinnovative teaching methodologies using Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality to deliver curriculum across the state of Arizona; academic, admissions, financial aid, personal well-being workshops both in-person and virtually; clinical and professional skillsexperiential learning opportunities, immersive experiential experience, upper division science coursework unavailable at students home institutions; informal instruction through mentoring and advising, and K-12 outreach.Evaluation and Assessment: The proposed evaluation follows the framework of Patton's (2008) Utilization-Focused Evaluation. It emphasizes close collaboration between evaluators and Program stakeholders, with the aim of providing timely and useful information to inform decisions regarding the design, development, and impact of ACCESS program. Specifically, the evaluation will provide data and recommendations to program personnel regarding the stated project objectives. Formative evaluation will share information about the extent to which the program activities are delivering on stated activities and outputs. Formative evaluation will take place continuously, at the end of each academic workshop activities. At the conclusion of each semester, fall, spring and summer, scholars, and program staff and faculty including the Advisory Board will complete a program evaluation survey. Annually, scholars, staff and faculty will be interviewed to triangulate data collected from formative evaluation surveys. If elements of the ACCESS program are not successful, the evaluation will help to identify constraints or barriers. This will allow for design iterations between cohorts and refinements for final products. Summative evaluation will focus on identifying the value added by the ACCESS program in terms of the resources invested: how many users benefitted and for what purposes and outcomes.Evaluation Data Management Team and Infrastructure: Dr. Kadian McIntosh, Assistant Dean of Evaluation and Analytics will coordinate our collaborative evaluative approach, ensuring integration with the ACCESS Advisory Board, UA IT services, UA Office of Institutional Analytics and Institutional Research (UA-AIR), and the UA Graduate College. Raw data from all evaluations will be de-identified (transcribed-if qualitative) and summarized. Summarized data will be made available openly to the PI and other key personnel.Student Data Collection and Tracking: The outcome measures will include assessing changes in student professional identity formation, sense of belonging, self-efficacy, intentions, and perceived barriers that result from participation in the ACCESS Program. We will use a survey instrument designed to measure self-efficacy, intentions, and perceived barriers that was pretested with students and since 2007 has been replicated to evaluate specific programs. This instrument will be modified for use by students in the ACCESS Program. Longitudinal follow-up, survey data will be collected online in Qualtrics. The evaluation will build upon the current data collection and evaluative structure for academic enrichment, cultural competency, and student recruitment and retention programs. The outcome measures will include assessing changes in student self-efficacy, intentions and perceived barriers that result from participation in the ACCESS Program. Longitudinal survey data will be collected online in Qualtrics.UA-CVM's existing enrollment system supports student tracking over time for long-term programs, linking with National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) data, facilitated by our UA Office of Analytics and Institutional Research (AIR). The evaluation plan will enable ACCESS Program PDs to track students transferring from one institution to another, and report enrollment and degree attainment. Additionally, for students who enroll in the UA at any level, progress can be monitored utilizing an institution-wide data system that records student data to monitor their academic progress and any professional degrees that are received. UA Office AIR will provide comparison data with enrolled student populations including analysis of differences in academic metrics and achievements; the UA's institutional capacity for data analysis will ensure our ability to demonstrate the impact of the proposed project on our cohort of eligible students.