Ten Years of Engagement, Capacity and Continuity: Reflections on a Trilogy for Student Success

In 2002 we reported that fewer American students were going into the sciences, engineering and quantitative disciplines in college and beyond (Campbell, Jolly, Hoey and Perlman, 2002; NSF, 2000). At that point we concluded that programmatic, instructional and curriculum successes had not led to expected increases in the numbers and diversity of those achieving at high levels and going into careers in the sciences and quantitative disciplines. We wondered why this was the case and concluded that a process was needed to analyze what individual students need to be successful in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). As a result, with support from the GE Foundation, we developed the ECC Trilogy. The Trilogy is composed of three factors: