On Dec. 2 at noon, Dr. Hsun-Yu Chan, assistant professor of psychology, will have a “brown bag talk” on the disconnection between intent and action among community college students. The presentation is called a brown bag talk because it is during lunch time, so people are allowed to bring their lunch.

The presentation is over the research he did about students in the STEM fields start at two-year colleges, and how they go with the intent of transferring after two years to a four-year university; but, that doesn’t always translate over into the student actually acting on that intention and going to a four-year university.

The STEM fields consist of sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

During the talk, Dr. Chan will be discussing his findings on the factors associated with the disconnection.

The study included 1,668 first-time, STEM-aspiring students in two-year colleges in Wisconsin. It was also conducted by Dr. Hsun-Yu Chan of the Department of Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education at Texas A&M University-Commerce and scholars from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Chan is the only member of A&M-Commerce involved in the study. This study was done while he worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before joining A&M-Commerce in fall 2016.

The Department of Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education is holding the brown bag talk series the first Friday of every month, and each of the talks will feature one faculty member as they share their most recent research findings. Dr. Chan’s presentation will be held in the Henderson building, in Room 207.