A Wonder: A Student and Faculty/Staff talk about an idea to address systemic discrimination experienced by transfer students of color

Research shows that the path towards a bachelor’s degree for transfer students of color in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (TSOC-STEM) has barriers which may be mediated by individuals at the receiving institution. In this presentation I will share a snippet about trust between students and faculty/staff to support changes within a bachelor-degree granting institution (BDGI). The Transfer Advocacy Group (TAG) is a project to facilitate discussion with TSOC-STEM and faculty/staff members to address the effects of institutional discrimination by the BDGI. The faculty/staff are institutional advocates who support transfer students of color to obtain a bachelors in STEM while being aware of the students’ needs and the demands of the institutions. In the snippet, Pablo (a TSOC-STEM; pseudonym) asks an institutional advocate to further unpack his idea to address the barriers at their institution. We extend the work of Aguilar-Valdez et al. (2013) on the stages of the path of conocimiento from a K-12 STEM teacher towards the BDGI institutional advocate.