An official website of the United States government
This interdisciplinary, inter-institutional research initiation project is motivated by the need to develop practical strategies for broadening the participation of African American students in engineering. The central objective of the project is to conduct a comparative study of the factors affecting the success and pathways to engineering careers of African American students at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI), the University of Toledo, and a Historically Black University (Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University). Through this research we hope to gain insight into the factors affecting the social and academic well-being of students at PWIs and HBCUs from a psychological and anthropological perspective. For students from underrepresented groups in STEM at both HBCUs and PWIs it is generally recognized that social capital in the form of familial, peer and mentor support is critical to persistence in their major field of study. However, the role that embedded networks within student groups in general, and minority engineering affinity groups in particular, play in engineering students’ identity formation and academic success is not well understood. It is also not clear how other factors including institutional support and the attitudes and beliefs of faculty and staff toward underrepresented minority students affect the ability of these students to integrate into the social and academic systems at their institutions and how these factors influence the formation and development of their identities as engineers. Here we report on the role of membership in organizations for underrepresented minority engineering students such as the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) in contributing to the interlinking of personal and professional identities, and to the career pathways of African American students enrolled in PWI and HBCU, respectively.
more »
« less
Social Networks Analysis of African American Engineering Students at a PWI and an HBCU – A Comparative Study
The central objective of this interdisciplinary, inter-institutional PFE: Research Initiation in Engineering Formation (PFE: RIEF) project is to conduct a comparative study of the factors affecting the success and pathways to engineering careers of African American students at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) and a Historically Black University (HBCU). The study focuses on investigating the criticality of the following three factors: 1. The attitudes and beliefs of faculty and staff toward underrepresented students and how these attitudes influence their classroom and advising interactions and expectations, and the impact this has on the students’ sense of belonging and academic success; 2. The existing institutional support mechanisms at both institutions and students’ perceptions of their efficacy and the role they perceive these mechanisms play in their academic success; and 3. The influence of student organizations- specifically underrepresented minority engineering affinity groups and the embedded networks therein on the social and academic integration of African American students at the two types of institutions.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1640553
- PAR ID:
- 10162662
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings
- ISSN:
- 2153-5868
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 27418
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
null (Ed.)One of the major barriers to increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields is the small number of URM applicants for academic positions. Recent studies have shown that African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students make up only 2.7% and 3.3%, respectively, of doctorates granted in STEM disciplines in the U.S. Additionally, the 2-year attrition rate of URM doctoral students is nearly 50%, substantially greater than the rate for non-URM students at most institutions. This presentation reports on an effort by an alliance of three North Carolina public universities to develop, implement, and test a model to improve these URM outcomes. The project involves adapting and implementing research-based institutional change strategies that positively impact URM graduate students in STEM disciplines. Each participating department has a volunteer faculty member interested in URM success issues designated as a "AGEP-NC Faculty Fellow." The Fellow receives support and training on mentoring, the experiences of underrepresented minority students, and on fostering change. First, the Fellows introduce their departmental colleagues to best practices in supporting URM students in PhD programs. Together with their department head and director of graduate programs, they work with the faculty to understand graduate student pathways, identify practices and policies that promote success, and diagnose trouble spots. Based on this study of the graduate student experience in their own department, the faculty then develop a departmental diversity plan to build these insights into departmental practices and procedures. This presentation will overview the project design for the 5-year program, share materials used in the Faculty Fellow training, and summarize preliminary findings from surveys regarding attitudes and perceptions of the faculty and graduate students in the Year 1 cohort of six departments. The project is supported by the NSF AGEP(Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) program.more » « less
-
One of the major barriers to increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields is the small number of URM applicants for academic positions. Recent studies have shown that African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students make up only 2.7% and 3.3%, respectively, of doctorates granted in STEM disciplines in the U.S. Additionally, the 2-year attrition rate of URM doctoral students is nearly 50%, substantially greater than the rate for non-URM students at most institutions. This presentation reports on an effort by an alliance of three North Carolina public universities to develop, implement, and test a model to improve these URM outcomes. The project involves adapting and implementing research-based institutional change strategies that positively impact URM graduate students in STEM disciplines. Each participating department has a volunteer faculty member interested in URM success issues designated as a "AGEP-NC Faculty Fellow." The Fellow receives support and training on mentoring, the experiences of underrepresented minority students, and on fostering change. First, the Fellows introduce their departmental colleagues to best practices in supporting URM students in PhD programs. Together with their department head and director of graduate programs, they work with the faculty to understand graduate student pathways, identify practices and policies that promote success, and diagnose trouble spots. Based on this study of the graduate student experience in their own department, the faculty then develop a departmental diversity plan to build these insights into departmental practices and procedures. This presentation will overview the project design for the 5-year program, share materials used in the Faculty Fellow training, and summarize preliminary findings from surveys regarding attitudes and perceptions of the faculty and graduate students in the Year 1 cohort of six departments. The project is supported by the NSF AGEP (Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) program.more » « less
-
One of the major barriers to increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields is the small number of URM applicants for academic positions. Recent studies have shown that African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students make up only 2.7% and 3.3%, respectively, of doctorates granted in STEM disciplines in the U.S. Additionally, the 2-year attrition rate of URM doctoral students is nearly 50%, substantially greater than the rate for non-URM students at most institutions. This presentation reports on an effort by an alliance of three North Carolina public universities to develop, implement, and test a model to improve these URM outcomes. The project involves adapting and implementing research-based institutional change strategies that positively impact URM graduate students in STEM disciplines. Each participating department has a volunteer faculty member interested in URM success issues designated as a "AGEP-NC Faculty Fellow." The Fellow receives support and training on mentoring, the experiences of underrepresented minority students, and on fostering change. First, the Fellows introduce their departmental colleagues to best practices in supporting URM students in PhD programs. Together with their department head and director of graduate programs, they work with the faculty to understand graduate student pathways, identify practices and policies that promote success, and diagnose trouble spots. Based on this study of the graduate student experience in their own department, the faculty then develop a departmental diversity plan to build these insights into departmental practices and procedures. This presentation will overview the project design for the 5-year program, share materials used in the Faculty Fellow training, and summarize preliminary findings from surveys regarding attitudes and perceptions of the faculty and graduate students in the Year 1 cohort of six departments. The project is supported by the NSF AGEP (Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) program.more » « less
-
One of the major barriers to increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields is the small number of URM applicants for academic positions. Recent studies have shown that African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students make up only 2.7% and 3.3%, respectively, of doctorates granted in STEM disciplines in the U.S. Additionally, the 2-year attrition rate of URM doctoral students is nearly 50%, substantially greater than the rate for non-URM students at most institutions. This presentation reports on an effort by an alliance of three North Carolina public universities to develop, implement, and test a model to improve these URM outcomes. The project involves adapting and implementing research-based institutional change strategies that positively impact URM graduate students in STEM disciplines. Each participating department has a volunteer faculty member interested in URM success issues designated as a "AGEP-NC Faculty Fellow." The Fellow receives support and training on mentoring, the experiences of underrepresented minority students, and on fostering change. First, the Fellows introduce their departmental colleagues to best practices in supporting URM students in PhD programs. Together with their department head and director of graduate programs, they work with the faculty to understand graduate student pathways, identify practices and policies that promote success, and diagnose trouble spots. Based on this study of the graduate student experience in their own department, the faculty then develop a departmental diversity plan to build these insights into departmental practices and procedures. This presentation will overview the project design for the 5-year program, share materials used in the Faculty Fellow training, and summarize preliminary findings from surveys regarding attitudes and perceptions of the faculty and graduate students in the Year 1 cohort of six departments. The project is supported by the NSF AGEP (Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) program.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
