More Like this

1. Board 33: The SEECRS Scholar Academy at Whatcom Community College: An S-STEM Scholarship Program

   Vannelli, T. A. ; Davishahl, E. ; Babcock, J. M. ; Hanley, D. ; Harri, E. ( June 2018 , ASEE annual conference & exposition proceedings)

   The STEM Excellence through Engagement in Collaboration, Research, and Scholarship (SEECRS) project at Whatcom Community College is a five-year program aiming to support academically talented students with demonstrated financial need in biology, chemistry, geology, computer science, engineering, and physics. This project is funded by an NSF S-STEM (Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) grant awarded in January 2017. Through an inclusive and long-range effort, the college identified a strong need for financial and comprehensive supports for STEM students. This project will offer financial, academic, and professional support to three two-year cohorts of students. The SEECRS project aims to utilize a STEM-specific guided pathways approach to strengthen recruitment, retention, and matriculation of STEM students at the community college level. Scholarship recipients will be supported through participation in the SEECRS Scholars Academy, a multi-pronged approach to student support combining elements of community building, faculty mentorship, targeted advising activities, authentic science practice, and social activities. Students are introduced to disciplines of interest through opportunities to engage in course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) in Biology, Chemistry and Engineering courses, funded summer research opportunities, and seminars presented by STEM professionals. Communities of practice will be nurtured through the introduction of cohort building and facultymore »mentorship. Cohort development starts with a required two-credit course for all scholars that emphasizes STEM identity development, specifically focusing on identifying and coping with the ways non-dominant individuals (racial/ethnic minorities, non-male gender, lower socioeconomic status, first-generation, 2-year community college vs. 4-year institutions) are made to feel as outsiders in STEM. Each SEECRS scholar is paired with a faculty mentor who engages in ongoing mentor training. The project evaluation will determine the efficacy of the project activities in achieving their intended outcomes. Specifically, we will collect data to answer the research question: To what extent can a guided pathways approach provide a coordinated and supported STEM experience at Whatcom Community College that: (1) increases student success, and (2) positively shifts students’ STEM self-identity? The evaluation will employ a quasi-experimental research design, specifically a pretest-posttest design with a matched comparison group. Our first cohort of 14 students was selected over two application rounds (winter and summer 2017). We awarded ten full scholarships and four half-scholarships based on financial need data. Cohort demographics of note compared to institutional percentages are: females (64% vs. 57%), Hispanic (14% vs. 17%), African American (7% vs. 2%), white (79% vs. 66%), first generation college bound (43% vs. 37%). The cohort is comprised of six students interested in engineering, six in biology, and one each in geology and environmental sciences. With increased communication between the project team, our Financial Aid office, Entry and Advising, high school outreach, and the Title III grant-funded Achieve, Inspire, Motivate (AIM) Program, as well as a longer advertising time, we anticipate significantly enhancing our applicant pool for the next cohort. The results and lessons learned from our first year of implementation will be presented.« less
2. Work in Progress: Institutional Context and the Implementation of the Redshirt in Engineering Model at Six Universities

   Knaphaus-Soran, Emily ; Delaney, Ann ; Tetrick, Katherine ; Cunningham, Sonya ; Cosman, Pamela ; Ennis, Tanya ; Myers, Beth ; Milford, Jana ; Llewellyn, Donna ; Riskin, Eve ; et al ( June 2018 , ASEE annual conference & exposition proceedings)

   Low-income students are underrepresented in engineering and are more likely to struggle in engineering programs. Such students may be academically talented and perform well in high school, but may have relatively weak academic preparation for college compared to students who attended better-resourced schools. Four-year engineering and computer science curricula are designed for students who are calculus-ready, but many students who are eager to become engineers or computer scientists need additional time and support to succeed. The NSF-funded Redshirt in Engineering Consortium was formed in 2016 as a collaborative effort to build on the success of three existing “academic redshirt” programs and expand the model to three new schools. The Consortium takes its name from the practice of redshirting in college athletics, with the idea of providing an extra year and support to promising engineering students from low-income backgrounds. The goal of the program is to enhance the students’ ability to successfully graduate with engineering or computer science degrees. This Work in Progress paper describes the redshirt programs at each of the six Consortium institutions, providing a variety of models for how an extra preparatory year or other intensive academic preparatory programs can be accommodated. This paper will pay particular attentionmore »to the ways that institutional context shapes the implementation of the redshirt model. For instance, what do the redshirt admissions and selection processes look like at schools with direct-to-college admissions versus schools with post-general education admissions? What substantive elements of the first-year curriculum are consistent across the consortium? Where variation in curriculum occurs, what are the institutional factors that produce this variation? How does the redshirt program fit with other pre-existing academic support services on campus, and what impact does this have on the redshirt program’s areas of focus? Program elements covered include first-year curricula, pre-matriculation summer programs, academic advising and support services, admissions and selection processes, and financial aid. Ongoing assessment efforts and research designed to investigate how the various redshirt models influence faculty and student experiences will be described.« less
3. Addressing Recruitment Issues with Potential Transfer Students from State Technical Colleges

   Conner, S. ; Duncan, L. ; Averitt, L. ; Boyer, D..M. ; Kennedy, M ( August 2022 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   In this work-in-progress paper we present emergent recruitment issues encountered during an ongoing design-based project with participants from two-year colleges for an NSF-funded scholarship program. Our hope is to connect with researchers who have previously explored similar issues or may be experiencing them in their current work. Student Pathways in Engineering and Computing for Transfer Students (SPECTRA) is an NSF S-STEM program that provides financial assistance to students transferring from the South Carolina Technical College System into Engineering or Computing majors at Clemson University [1]. SPECTRA also assists students by connecting them with peers at the technical colleges who move together through the transfer process to Clemson and are supported by the SPECTRA program until graduation. In addition to exploring the experiences of current SPECTRA participants, we investigate how the project can be scaled to include more students and sustained after NSF support ends. The 2021-2022 academic year is the third of the five-year program, although, given emergent recruitment issues, we foresee application for a no-cost extension. The primary concern is the low number of students currently supported in comparison to our goals, highlighting recruitment for further examination. We planned to support up to twenty students in year 1, 52more »students in year 2, 70 students in year 3, but our actual numbers in the first three years are 7, 12, and 28 students. Given this trend, our concern over how we recruit students into SPECTRA is now at the forefront of our work. The program is not reaching those students who are eligible, and low recruitment has limited the quality of research needed to inform the construction of a sustainable program. To explore recruitment, we have added interviews with potential students at the technical colleges. In addition to this interview process, we have reviewed our internal practices, analysed existing public information and social media from similar programs, and reviewed existing literature from related research and practice. We identified aspects that may have impacted our current situation. The first was explicit, being the impact of COVID-19 on our ability to hold in-person recruitment events. Similar to studies that have identified other COVID-19 impacts to two-year institutions such as “retention rates declined the most in the community college sector (-2.1 pp to 51.6%)” [2], “disparities in upward transfer mobility increased during the pandemic year” [3], and community colleges being hit hardest “with a 9.4 percent decline” in enrollment [4], we intend to further clarify the influence of COVID-19 on our context. COVID-19 also played a role with regard to the need for scholarship funds, as one of the technical colleges in our program used federal relief funds to provide free tuition for all students during the 2020-2021 academic year. Another potential impact is the effectiveness of the SPECTRA webpages and other online materials to meet the needs of potential students considering the program. In this work-in-progress paper, we will share how we are addressing recruitment issues and how new interventions are impacting recruitment.« less
4. Retention Focused S-STEM Support Program

   Hensel, Robin ; Morris, Melissa ; Dygert, Joseph ( September 2019 , AAAS/NSF 2019 S-STEM Symposium)

   POSTER. Presented at the Symposium (9/12/2019) Abstract: The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) employs literature-based, best practices to support and retain underrepresented students in engineering through graduation with the ultimate goal of diversifying the engineering workforce. AcES was established in 2012 and has been supported via NSF S-STEM award number 1644119 since 2016. The 2016, 2017, and 2018 cohorts consist of 12, 20, and 22 students, respectively. Five S-STEM supported scholarships were awarded to the 2016 cohort, seven scholarships were awarded to students from the 2017 cohort, and six scholarships were awarded to students from the 2018 cohort. AcES students participate in a one-week summer bridge experience, a common fall semester course focused on professional development, and a common spring semester course emphasizing the role of engineers in societal development. Starting with the summer bridge experience, and continuing until graduation, students are immersed in curricular and co-curricular activities with the goals of fostering feelings of institutional inclusion and belonging in engineering, providing academic support and student success skills, and professional development. The aforementioned goals are achieved by providing (1) opportunities for faculty-student, student-student, and industry mentor-student interaction, (2) academic support, and student success education in areas such as time managementmore »and study skills, and (3) facilitated career and major exploration. Four research questions are being examined, (1) What is the relationship between participation in the AcES program and participants’ academic success?, (2) What aspects of the AcES program most significantly impact participants’ success in engineering, (3) How do AcES students seek to overcome challenges in studying engineering, and (4) What is the longitudinal impact of the AcES program in terms of motivation, perceptions, feelings of inclusion, outcome expectations of the participants and retention? Students enrolled in the AcES program participate in the GRIT, LAESE, and MSLQ surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews at the start and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a measure of students’ GRIT, general self-efficacy, engineering self-efficacy, test anxiety, math outcome efficacy, intrinsic value of learning, inclusion, career expectations, and coping efficacy. Focus group and interview responses are analyzed in order to answer research questions 2, 3, and 4. Survey responses are analyzed to answer research question 4, and institutional data such as GPA is used to answer research question 1. An analysis of the 2017 AcES cohort survey responses produced a surprising result. When the responses of AcES students who retained were compared to the responses of AcES students who left engineering, those who left engineering had higher baseline values of GRIT, career expectations, engineering self-efficacy, and math outcome efficacy than those students who retained. A preliminary analysis of the 2016, 2017, and 2018 focus group and one-on-one interview responses indicates that the Engineering Learning Center, tutors, organized out of class experiences, first-year seminar, the AcES cohort, the AcES summer bridge, the AcES program, AcES Faculty/Staff, AcES guest lecturers, and FEP faculty/Staff are viewed as valuable by students and cited with contributing to their success in engineering. It is also evident that AcES students seek help from peers, seek help from tutors, use online resources, and attend office hours to overcome their challenges in studying engineering.« less
5. Redshirt in Engineering: A Model for Improving Equity and Inclusion

   Myers, Beth ; Knaphus-Soran, Emily ; Llewellyn, Donna ; Delaney, Ann ; Cunningham, Sonya ; Cosman, Pamela ; Ennis, Tanya ; Tetrick, Katherine ; Riskin, Eve ; Callahan, Janet ; et al ( April 2018 , 2018 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity Conference Proceedings)

   The NSF-funded Redshirt in Engineering Consortium was formed in 2016 with the goal of enhancing the ability of academically talented but underprepared students coming from low-income backgrounds to successfully graduate with engineering degrees. The Consortium takes its name from the practice of redshirting in college athletics, with the idea of providing an extra year and support to help promising engineering students complete a bachelor’s degree. The Consortium builds on the success of three existing “academic redshirt” programs and expands the model to three new schools. The Existing Redshirt Institutions (ERIs) help mentor and train the new Student Success Partners (SSP), and SSPs contribute their unique expertise to help ERIs improve existing redshirt programs. This Work in Progress paper describes the history of the Redshirt in Engineering Consortium; the Redshirt model as a framework for addressing issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering; and initial lessons learned from the implementation of the model across unique institutional contexts.