Connecting Research and Education At TExas (CREATE) is a partnership program established between UT Austin and Austin Community College (ACC) whose goal is to increase retention of community college students in STEM. CREATE works to achieve this goal by building relationships between ACC students and UT Austin researchers through a fall/spring seminar series held at ACC that features UT faculty speakers and a 9-week summer research program that pairs ACC students with research mentors at UT Austin. With support from the CDCM, over the past two years CREATE has expanded into materials science, engineering, and physics, with CDCM faculty volunteering to serve as both seminar speakers and research mentors for CREATE.

CREATE has a growing track record for success. 71% of CREATE students have transferred to a 4-year university, which outstrips ACC’s baseline transfer rate of 37%. CREATE students have earned authorship on 10 research publications and alumni are enrolled in graduate programs at universities such as Penn State, UNC Chapel Hill, Pitt, and the University of Washington. CREATE was also named the 2024 recipient of the Partners in Progress & Prosperity (P3) Award given out by the ACS Southwest Region.