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1. Learning Communities: Impact on Retention of first-year students

   Darbeheshti, Maryam ; Schupbach, William ; Lafuente, Ariel ; Altman, Tom ; Goodman, Katherine ; Jacobson, Michael ; O'Brien, Shani ( July 2020 , Zone 1 Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   This completely evidence-based paper focuses on the impact of the Engineering Learning Communities” on the retention rate of the first-year students. The University of Colorado at Denver has recognized the need to increase retention rates at the Engineering College and has created a Learning Community to aid in this effort. The Engineering Learning Community (ELC) was launched in 2016 and works to increase student collaboration from day one, and to increase interest in engineering through an introductory design course for first year freshman students. ELC students not only take this design course but are matriculated into common first year Math and English courses. These attributes are thought to enhance the student’s ability to overcome the hurdles of their first year and improve their interest in completing a four-year degree at the Engineering College. Since then, three cohorts of ELC students have been observed through the lens of retention, and this study is intended to show how the ELC is affiliated with retention. The results from this study indicate that first year GPA is strongly related to first year retention at the Engineering College, and that students participating in the ELC are observed to have a higher GPA at the end of their first year when compared to the rest of the students in the Engineering College. 

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2. Work in Progress: Impacting Engineering First-year Student Retention Through a Nonconventional Engineering Learning Community

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--35647  

   Bartolomei-Suarez, Sonia ; Jimenez, Manuel ; Guillemard, Luisa ; Suarez, Oscar ; Santiago-Román, Aidsa ; Santiago, Nayda ; Lopez del Puerto, Carla ; Quintero, Pedro ; Cardona-Martínez, Nelson ; Valentin, Anidza ( June 2020 , 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   This work in progress explores the impact of activities developed to improve students’ persistence in engineering undergraduate programs as part of a five-year NSF grant. The Program for Engineering Access, Retention, and LIATS Success (PEARLS), has been running for one year in the College of Engineering (CoE) in our institution attempting to increase persistence, retention and graduation rates, and professional success of low-income, academically talented students (LIATS). This paper describes the design of a novel engineering learning community (ELC) introduced as part of the PEARLS project interventions. The ELC is fostered through activities included in a course designed for PEARLS first-year students. During the course, first-year and senior students engaged in different ways: through senior design and capstone projects, peer demonstrations of team projects, and lab visits. We discuss the course structure, activities, and early findings of its implementation. 

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3. Board 192: A Support System for Low-Income Students to Catalyze Diversity and Success

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--46757  

   Mallouk, Kaitlin ; Cruz, Juan ; Farrell, Stephanie ; Riley, Abagael ( June 2024 , ASEE Conferences)

   There is substantial opportunity for engineering graduates to enter the workforce to engage in a fulfilling career and achieve social mobility, but there is a lack of adequate support for low income, academically talented students. The purpose of this poster is to describe the interventions designed to support S-STEM scholarship students at [blinded for review] University in the first year of our S-STEM project. Our S-STEM project objectives are threefold: 1) Provide scholarships to encourage talented students with low incomes and demonstrated financial need to initiate and graduate from engineering majors in the College of Engineering at [blinded] University and subsequently enter the engineering workforce or a graduate program; 2) Develop a support system that integrates multiple elements and services to foster a learning environment that motivates scholarship students to persist in their engineering studies; and 3) Foster an inclusive learning environment by engaging all engineering students in diversity, equity, and inclusion experiences and nurturing an equity mindset in student leaders through participation in training programs. To accomplish these goals, we identified 10 low-income, academically talented students to receive scholarships. We also identified 80 additional engineering students who wished to participate in the Engineering Living/Learning Community (ELC). The scholarships students and other interested students were placed in the ELC starting in Fall 2023, where they are experiencing first year engineering as a cohort. This cohort experience includes required seminars, required attendance of Engineering I and Calculus I in a designated section, and the option of living in a shared dorm to facilitate further collaboration. Seminars that are part of the ELC are focused on adjusting to college life (e.g., time management, course registration, resume design) and diversity, equity, and inclusion subjects, including upstander training and coping with imposter syndrome. Scholarship students are also being encouraged to engage in leadership training offered through the University. This leadership training also focuses on DEI topics, and encourages students to be informed advocates. Finally, this project is assessed by an external evaluator to determine the project’s impact on students’ motivation, sense of belonging, and their equity mindset. Evaluation data involve pre- and post-surveys of all first-year engineering students, and focus groups of project leaders, ELC mentors, scholarship students, and other engineering students. 

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4. ACCESS in STEM: An S-STEM Project Supporting Economically Disadvantaged STEM-Interested Students in Their First Two Years

   Cline, E ; Abraham, M ; Alaei, S ; Dillon, H ; Dinglasan-Panlilio, J ; Heller, J ; Kmail, Z ; Lee, S ; Ma, E ; Nahmani, M ; et al ( June 2023 , ASEE annual conference exposition)

   Achieving Change in our Communities for Equity and Student Success (ACCESS) in STEM at the University of Washington Tacoma started as a Track 1 S-STEM program in 2018 and has supported 69 students to date. This year we received Track 2 funding and welcomed our fifth cohort to campus, with funding to support ~32 additional students through 2026. University of Washington Tacoma is an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institution (AANAPISI), and we serve a high proportion of racial minority and first generation college students. Our ACCESS scholars are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics, Environmental Science, Biomedical Sciences, Information Technology, Computer Science and Systems, Computer Engineering and Systems, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Civil Engineering, with Computer Science and Engineering representing over 60% of ACCESS scholars to date. First-time college students and first-year transfer students receive full scholarships for their first two years, and partial scholarships for their third and fourth years. The project includes an optional Early Fall Math course to enhance entry into STEM majors, and participants are able to engage in a Research Experience or project-based Introduction to Engineering course in their first year. Coupled with individual faculty mentoring and an on-campus STEM living learning community, the quarterly Success in STEM seminar course helps scholars form a cohesive community through group mentoring, as well as develop a sense of belonging, identity, and empowerment to transform the culture of STEM. This program is distinguished by its focus on pre-STEM majors in their first and second years on campus, and includes mentor training for ~30-40 faculty in teaching and mentoring diverse student populations, thus impacting all students in our majors. Our goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of a program that focuses on the first two years of college and provides financial support, courses to introduce students to research and project-based engineering, and intensive mentoring in increasing retention and academic success for Computer Science and Engineering (CS+E) students, and whether this program helps to close equity gaps for CS+E students who are low socioeconomic status (SES), underrepresented minorities (URMs), female, and/or first generation in college (First Gen) students. We compared our student scholars to a comparison group of students who met eligibility requirements but did not participate in the program. Program scholars had higher first and second year retention, and had significantly higher GPAs. The pandemic resulted in significant social, emotional, and economic stresses for our program scholars, which may have heightened the impact of the ACCESS in STEM program. 

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5. Promoting Academic Success of Economically Disadvantaged, STEM-Interested, First- and Second-Year Undergraduate Students via the ACCESS in STEM Program at University of Washington Tacoma

   Cline, E.T. ( July 2021 , Understanding Interventions Journal)

   We are facing a national challenge of low retention rates for STEM-interested students. At the University of Washington Tacoma (UWT), a public, predominantly undergraduate, minority-serving institution (Asian-American, Native American, Pacific Islander, AANAPISI), only 28% of high achieving (high school GPA>3.0), STEM-interested at entry, Pell-eligible, first-time-in-college (FTIC) students undergraduates have entered a STEM major by the beginning of their 2nd yr, and the proportion is significantly lower for PEERs (persons excluded from STEM due to ethnicity or race [Asai, 2020]) at only 16%, representing a substantial equity gap. To address this problem, we developed the Achieving Change in our Communities for Equity and Student Success (ACCESS) in STEM Program. Supported by an NSF S-STEM grant since 2018, the program supports low-income, STEM-interested students by providing focused mentoring, a living learning community, a course-based research experience in their first year, and scholarships in their first two years of college. Based on the Student Persistence model of Graham et al. (2013), we hypothesized that these interventions would increase retention, academic performance, and progress into and through STEM majors. Our approach builds upon existing research demonstrating the importance of early research experiences (Thiry et al., 2012) and intensive mentoring and community building, particularly in the context of AANAPISI institutions (Nguyen et al., 2018). 

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