Articles
HCC Central College professor wins grant to drive student success in chemistry
By Donald Sparks, HCC Central Communications Director
Sep 9, 2025
Houston City College's (HCC) Karen Fortune, Ph.D., obtained at $8,000 grant from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and the Gates Foundation to support faculty in designing courseware (called Real Chem) to improve student success and decrease DFWs in General Chemistry.
In higher education, DFW rates represent the percentage of students in a course who receive a failing grade (D or F) or withdraw from the course. These rates serve as a key indicator of student success, with high DFW rates often pointing to significant challenges within specific courses, instructional methods, or student support systems.
Dr. Fortune was motivated to seek the grant to improve student success in her courses.
“At the time I was using two tools that I thought would be helpful, CampusKnot and Stemble, however, one barrier to using these tools was the cost for the students,” the professor said. “So, I was looking for something that will allow us to provide scholarships to students or reduce their cost of attendance.”
She mentioned the grant provides an opportunity for faculty to work together, with other chemistry instructors outside of HCC, with instructional designers, and teacher coaches to design a course that incorporates best practices in teaching science, and specifically, chemistry.
The grant will fund the chemistry-learning platform REAL CHEM designed to allow students to:
- Engage with real-world examples that connect chemistry to everyday challenges making chemistry relevant;
- Inspire students to see themselves in chemistry linking concepts to careers;
- Easily break down complex concepts with interactive assignments;
- Remove math as a barrier as students will apply math skills in a contextual way;
- Support students with personalized adaptive feedback and an AI-support tutor.
“It allows us to collaborate to come up with a custom design for HCC students and provides an opportunity to possibly provide a course with adaptive learning features that is personalized to the student understanding at a lower cost,” Dr. Fortune said. “Currently, student textbooks cost $65. There is no personalization. With this grant faculty can write or customize an e-text with adaptive ‘personalized’ homework, which is more engaging for students and relevant to their lived experiences.”
Upon notification that HCC received the grant, Fortune was excited as it will allow her to offer a course that inspires students to think of chemistry beyond the theoretical textbook course or one that is required by their degree plan.
She mentioned the next step is to get more Chemistry faculty interested in piloting REAL CHEM and work with a team of experts on preparing a customized course that is based on student usage and learning data.
“We recognize that Dr. Fortune’s work to pilot and implement technology that supports improved student outcomes is important," said Karen Vignare, Ph.D., vice president, Digital Transformation for Student Success at APLU. "She was chosen due to her willingness to pioneer and innovate.”
Dr. Fortune hopes to secure another grant in the future and continue removing barriers to students in General Chemistry.
“I want to provide a course to students that reduces cost by 50 percent of current cost and to continue to use technology to personalize learning for each student, thereby improving student success,” she said.
To learn more about studying Chemistry at HCC, visit hccs.edu/chemistry.