Research and Development

As part of the NJ Council of County Colleges/NJBIA initiative, NJ Pathways to Career Opportunities, the Research and Development (R&D) Center of Workforce Innovation, Bergen Community College (BCC) led the effort in developing an R&D Enhanced Pathway. It promoted the development of research skills among community college students driven by industry needs.  

When compared with the traditional educational pathway (High School -> Community College -> Four-Year Institution), the Research and Development Enhanced pathway allowed students to explore, grow, and establish research skills through dual enrollment initiatives, industry-recognized badges and early exposure to research opportunities at four-year colleges. By working with educational partners, such as Applied Technology High School of Bergen County Technical Schools, Passaic Public Schools (CTE program) and NJ PATHWAYS STEM network, students were able to acquire highly valued research skills through experiential learning opportunities. Many initiatives span months of the academic year and will be accomplished in 2023.  

BCC conducted several programs for high-school and middle-school participants to raise awareness and develop an interest in Research & Development careers in general and the BCC research program in particular. The STEM Research Exploration series was established to promote interest in research-driven learning, with targeted workshops for high-school and middle-school students on college research and related careers.   A sampling Is below:  

• BCC hosted the STEM Summer Research Program Wrap-Up / R&D Pathway Kick-Off session to showcase 15 research project presentations. It included a round-table discussion on contributing to the development of the R&D pathway. Precipitants represented academia, the K-12 sector, and government agencies (a copy of the presentation is attached).  
• Under the STEM Research Exploration series, middle-school participants learned about the physics of sound and its role in flying objects in the atmosphere. During the Introduction and Hands-On Workshop to High Altitude Balloon Project, the middle-schoolers explored physics-based research and discussed related careers (led by BCC faculty and the STEM research team; a copy of the project is attached). 
• Under the STEM Research Exploration series, Applied Tech High School students learned about two IT-based applied research projects and related careers. During the hands-on workshop, high-schoolers enhanced their programming and web development skills (led by BCC faculty and Bergen Routes Wayfinding Application and Open Mainframe Official Transcript Ledger student research teams; copies of the projects are attached). 
• Under the STEM Research Exploration series, Passaic Academy for Science and Engineering high school students attended BCC STEM Wintership Research student presentations and were introduced to college-level research opportunities. 
• Under the STEM Research Exploration series, the college Biology professor serves as a faculty mentor to Applied Tech High School Women in STEM Club. Currently, the Club is exploring various opportunities for Biology-related research and work on experimental design. 
• In March 2023, a panel of Women in STEM Careers comprised of industry researchers will conduct a discussion on inclusiveness and the role of mentorship in the professional world.  
• In April 2023, the STEM C^2 Research Summit will take place. High school and college student research teams will present their work and participate in the poster competition. The keynote presentation and career-related workshops will take place during the conference. 

In 2022, BCC STEM student researchers completed the following non-credit courses and earned the following Coursera certificates: 

• Antimicrobial Resistance – theory and methods by the Technical University of Denmark 
• Leading Diverse Teams & Organizations by the University of Michigan 
• Data Visualization with R by IBM 
• Deep Learning with TensorFlow by IBM 

As part of the BCC STEM Research program, several non-credit mini-courses were identified as candidates for badge-bearing learning experiences.  The courses included: 

• Speech Coaching for STEM Presentations 
• Technical Writing for Scientific Publications 
• Project Management for STEM Academic Research 
• Applied Statistical Computing (R Language) and Experimental Research Design 
• Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) 
• Introduction to Soldering and Microcontrollers 

The process of evaluating the above-mentioned courses and aligning them to the corresponding badges/credentials has begun.  It will continue into Spring 2023 semester with a due date in May. Additional courses may be considered.  

Path to SalesForce Certification: 

In the Spring/Summer of 2023, a group of twenty STEM students will become certified in the SalesForce by the Trailhead Academy Series. The two-part series will include training for industry-recognized certifications:      

1) TVB-101: Trailblazer Virtual Bootcamp for Salesforce Associates; results in Salesforce Certified Associate credential (more INFO); 

2) TVB-201: Trailblazer Virtual Bootcamp for New Admins; results in Salesforce Certified Administrator credential (more INFO). 

 To identify and evaluate skills-based programming courses used in Research and Development, BCC teaching faculty reviewed several existing editions/online packages.  As per faculty review, no existing online course was found equivalent to the credit-bearing Python Programming course, mainly due to differences in student learning outcomes and assessment mechanisms set forth by the college accreditation.  However, the PLA candidates are encouraged to schedule evaluative interviews with teaching faculty to verify their programming proficiency level and, if found applicable, waive the requirement and/or receive corresponding academic credit. In Spring of 2023, a similar effort will be performed on identifying and evaluating Java Programming proficiency.  

To meet the objectives set by the experiential learning deliverable, the faculty mentors revisited their teaching curricula and embedded research-based learning opportunities into their coursework.  With the focus on Biology and Biotechnology curricula, the following modifications took place during Fall 2022 semester:  

• Based on the Summer research project Evolution of SARS-CoV-2: Omicron’s Babies, the new unit on Microbial Mechanisms of Pathogenicity was added to the Microbiology course, and the new Aeromicrobiology unit was added to the Environmental Microbiology course (a copy of the research project is attached). A total of 61 students enrolled in these classes benefited from newly developed research-based curricula and were able to improve their R&D skills.  
• Based on the Summer research project Identify Normal Microbiota Growth Patterns After COVID-19 Pandemic, the new unit on Antibiotic Sensitivity Testing was added to the Microbiology course (a copy of the research project is attached). A total of 30 students enrolled in this course benefited from newly developed research-based curricula and were able to improve their R&D skills.  

While the original focus of this deliverable was designed to be aligned with Biology and Biotechnology areas, the implementation mechanism allowed us to incorporate additional related areas and expand the research-based learning to other academic disciplines.   

For example, based on the Summer research project Antimicrobial and Synergistic Properties of Nanoparticles, the new Nanoparticles lab was added to the General Chemistry lab course (a copy of the research project is attached). A total of 52 students enrolled in this course benefited from newly developed research-based curricula and were able to improve their R&D skills.  

Connected to the Experiential Learning deliverable, the Experiential Learners/Pilot project is directly aligned with expanding the opportunities for community college students to build fundamental research skills. It follows the model of embedding the extra-curriculum research work into the mainstream curriculum but does so without necessarily being tied to the existing STEM research projects.   

A group of teaching faculty did not participate in the Summer or Winterim research programs, but it did not prevent them from participating in this initiative. Under the pilot umbrella, teaching faculty interested in expanding the research-based learning opportunities and enhancing curricula were encouraged to join the effort. During the Fall 2023 semester (September – December), the following modifications took place to promote the inclusion of the new research-based content and enhance the building of research-based skills among the college population:  

• A new unit with the hands-on lab was added to the Embryology class, which positively impacted 18 students; 
• A new unit with the hands-on lab was added to the Botany course, which positively impacted 42 students;  
• An applied research project was added to the Principles of Ecology class, which positively impacted 7 students.  

In total, during the Fall 2022 semester, 210 students enhanced their research skills by studying in one of the above courses, as opposed to 59 students who participated in the selection-based research program.  During the Spring 2023 semester, the work will continue to expand to other disciplines and courses with a goal of impacting more students. 

Since the Summer of 2022, information dissemination and professional development opportunities included the following venues: 

• R&D Pathway Kick-Off  
• Quarterly meetings of the New Jersey STEM Pathways Network 
• Targeted meetings with faculty and students from NJIT, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering 

Additional professional opportunities will include: 

• Research faculty collaborative at NJIT (scheduled for March 2023) 
• STEM C^2 Research Summit (scheduled for April 2023) 
• STEM month events hosted by NJ STEM Pathway Network (scheduled for March 2023)