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1. Mentoring Approaches that Support Minoritized STEM Undergraduates: A Pilot Study (EBR)

   Bork, S.J. ; Clarke, N. ; Mondisa, J.-L. ( January 2022 , Proceedings of the Annual American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference)

   This work presents the research methods and preliminary results from a pilot study that assesses mentoring approaches used to support racially minoritized students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. There is a national imperative to broaden participation of racially minoritized undergraduates in STEM fields as evidenced by reports and the recent calls for social justice and equity in these fields. In STEM, mentoring has been recognized as a mechanism that can help to support racially minoritized student populations (e.g., persons who identify as Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and American Indian/Alaskan Native). Yet for mentors in higher education, minimal examples exist that detail effective mentoring approaches, strategies, and competencies that support the persistence and success of minoritized mentees in STEM. In better understanding mentoring approaches, we can make visible how to better mentor these populations and help to employ more equitable mentoring participation. The research question guiding this study is: What approaches are used by mentors who help racially minoritized undergraduate mentees persist in STEM fields? Mentoring literature and two theoretical frameworks were leveraged to situate these mentoring experiences. Intersectionality theory is used to explore the role of compounding minoritized identities within the power contexts (i.e., structural, hegemonic, disciplinary, and interpersonal) of higher education. Community cultural wealth is also used as a lens to examine six forms of capital (i.e., family, social, navigational, aspirational, resistant, and linguistic) that may be used in mentoring practices with minoritized students. This paper will present the methods and findings from the pilot study, centering on the development of the team’s interview protocol. This work will provide insights about the piloting process of a larger study as well as initial emergent themes about the approaches and experiences of mentors who mentor minoritized undergraduate students in STEM. 

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2. Lived Experiences of African American Engineering Students at a PWI Through the Lens of Navigational Capital

   Damas, S. ; Benson, L. ( February 2022 , 2022 CoNECD (Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity))

   There are significant disparities between the conferring of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) bachelor’s degrees to minoritized groups and the number of STEM faculty that represent minoritized groups at four-year predominantly White institutions (PWIs). Studies show that as of 2019, African American faculty at PWIs have increased by only 2.3% in the last 20 years. This study explores the ways in which this imbalance affects minoritized students in engineering majors. Our research objective is to describe the ways in which African American students navigate their way to success in an engineering program at a PWI where the minoritized faculty representation is less than 10%. In this study, we define success as completion of an undergraduate degree and matriculation into a Ph.D. program. Research shows that African American students struggle with feeling like the “outsider within” in graduate programs and that the engineering culture can permeate from undergraduate to graduate programs. We address our research objective by conducting interviews using navigational capital as our theoretical framework, which can be defined as resilience, academic invulnerability, and skills. These three concepts come together to denote the journey of an individual as they achieve success in an environment not created with them in mind. Navigational capital has been applied in education contexts to study minoritized groups, and specifically in engineering education to study the persistence of students of color. Research on navigational capital often focuses on how participants acquire resources from others. There is a limited focus on the experience of the student as the individual agent exercising their own navigational capital. Drawing from and adapting the framework of navigational capital, this study provides rich descriptions of the lived experiences of African American students in an engineering program at a PWI as they navigated their way to academic success in a system that was not designed with them in mind. This pilot study took place at a research-intensive, land grant PWI in the southeastern United States. We recruited two students who identify as African American and are in the first year of their Ph.D. program in an engineering major. Our interview protocol was adapted from a related study about student motivation, identity, and sense of belonging in engineering. After transcribing interviews with these participants, we began our qualitative analysis with a priori coding, drawing from the framework of navigational capital, to identify the experiences, connections, involvement, and resources the participants tapped into as they maneuvered their way to success in an undergraduate engineering program at a PWI. To identify other aspects of the participants’ experiences that were not reflected in that framework, we also used open coding. The results showed that the participants tapped into their navigational capital when they used experiences, connections, involvement, and resources to be resilient, academically invulnerable, and skillful. They learned from experiences (theirs or others’), capitalized on their connections, positioned themselves through involvement, and used their resources to achieve success in their engineering program. The participants identified their experiences, connections, and involvement. For example, one participant who came from a blended family (African American and White) drew from the experiences she had with her blended family. Her experiences helped her to understand the cultures of Black and White people. She was able to turn that into a skill to connect with others at her PWI. The point at which she took her familial experiences to use as a skill to maneuver her way to success at a PWI was an example of her navigational capital. Another participant capitalized on his connections to develop academic invulnerability. He was able to build his connections by making meaningful relationships with his classmates. He knew the importance of having reliable people to be there for him when he encountered a topic he did not understand. He cultivated an environment through relationships with classmates that set him up to achieve academic invulnerability in his classes. The participants spoke least about how they used their resources. The few mentions of resources were not distinct enough to make any substantial connection to the factors that denote navigational capital. The participants spoke explicitly about the PWI culture in their engineering department. From open coding, we identified the theme that participants did not expect to have role models in their major that looked like them and went into their undergraduate experience with the understanding that they will be the distinct minority in their classes. They did not make notable mention of how a lack of minority faculty affected their success. Upon acceptance, they took on the challenge of being a racial minority in exchange for a well-recognized degree they felt would have more value compared to engineering programs at other universities. They identified ways they maneuvered around their expectation that they would not have representative role models through their use of navigational capital. Integrating knowledge from the framework of navigational capital and its existing applications in engineering and education allows us the opportunity to learn from African American students that have succeeded in engineering programs with low minority faculty representation. The future directions of this work are to outline strategies that could enhance the path of minoritized engineering students towards success and to lay a foundation for understanding the use of navigational capital by minoritized students in engineering at PWIs. Students at PWIs can benefit from understanding their own navigational capital to help them identify ways to successfully navigate educational institutions. Students’ awareness of their capacity to maintain high levels of achievement, their connections to networks that facilitate navigation, and their ability to draw from experiences to enhance resilience provide them with the agency to unleash the invisible factors of their potential to be innovators in their collegiate and work environments. 

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3. S-STEM Student Reflections and IDP Process

   Fiss, L. K. ; Irwin, J. L. ; Tan, S. ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. https://peer.asee.org/37693)

   Student reflections and using individual development plans (IDPs) for mentoring have been an integral part of an NSF S-STEM project focusing on students pursuing baccalaureate degrees in Engineering Technology (ET). The Engineering Technology Scholars – IMProving Retention and Student Success (ETS-IMPRESS) project provides financial support and offers students several high-impact curricular and co-curricular activities to increase the success of academically talented students. This interdisciplinary project brings together the Electrical Engineering Technology, and Computer Network and System Administration programs in the College of Computing and the College of Engineering’s Mechanical Engineering Technology program, with programs in the Pavlis Honors College, an inclusive and unique college designed around high-impact educational practices. An IDP is commonly used in business and industry to assist employees in meeting short- and long-term goals in their professional career. This tool has been adapted for use in the educational setting in a faculty mentoring capacity. The ET program advisors assign the freshman or transfer S-STEM student scholars with faculty mentors to match their area of research interest. The faculty mentors meet with the students a minimum of three to four times a year to review their IDP, make suggestions, and provide input for reaching their goals. The goals of the IDP process are to develop a deeper more meaningful relationship between the advisor and student, reflect and develop a strategy for the scholar’s educational and career success, and manage expectations and identify opportunities. In the initial meeting there are several prompts for the student to write about their goals, strengths, weaknesses and perceived challenges. In subsequent meetings the advisor and student revisit the IDP to discuss progress towards those goals. This study will describe some outcomes of the IDP process providing specific examples from each of the ET programs. Although it is difficult to measure the effect of these relationships, it is one of the high impact practices that have been noted as increasing student engagement and retention. The consequences of COVID-19 introducing a virtual environment to the IDP process will also be examined from the viewpoint of both student and advisor. An advantage of the IDP meetings for students is that advisors may provide personal business connections for internship opportunities and/or research projects that otherwise would not be discussed in a typical office hour or classroom session. One of the innovations of the ETS-IMPRESS program was requiring participation in the Honors Pathway Program, which generally emphasizes intrinsic motivation (and does not use GPA in admissions or awarding of credentials). The honors program consists of three seminar classes and four experiential components; for all of these, students write reflections designed to promote their development of self-authorship. Preliminary survey results show no difference between ETS and other honors students in the areas of student motivation, intention to persist, and professional skill development. ETS students see a closer link between their current major and their future career than non-ETS honors students. A comparative analysis of reflections will investigate students’ perceptions of the program’s effect. 

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4. Collaborative Research: AGEP FC-PAM: Project ELEVATE (Equity-focused Launch to Empower and Value AGEP Faculty to Thrive in Engineering)

   Alaine M. Allen ; Darlene Saporu ; Elisa Riedo ; Shelley L. Anna ; Linda DeAngelo: Andrew Douglas ; Nathalie Florence Felciai ; Neetha Khan ; Jelena Kovacevic ; Stacey J. Marks ; William Harry Sanders ; et al ( June 2023 , Review directory American Society for Engineering Education)

   Carnegie Mellon University, Johns Hopkins University, and New York University created the Project Equity-focused Launch to Empower and Value AGEP Faculty to Thrive in Engineering (ELEVATE) Alliance (National Science Foundation Awards #2149995, #2149798 #2149899 from the Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM in the Directorate for STEM Education) to develop a model to promote the equitable advancement of early career tenure-track engineering faculty from populations of interest to the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program. The goal of this AGEP Faculty Career Pathways Alliance Model (FCPAM) is to develop, implement, self-study, and institutionalize a career pathway model that can be adapted for use at other similar institutions for advancing early career engineering faculty who are: African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders. This NSF AGEP FCPAM will provide a framework for institutional change at private, highly selective research institutions that will enable all faculty to be members of a collaborative community. Improving the experience of these faculty can lead to increased diversity in the engineering faculty and ultimately result in graduating more engineering students from diverse populations and increasing diversity in the engineering workforce. The Alliance interventions will focus on three major areas, 1) equity-focused institutional change designed to make structural changes that support the advancement of AGEP faculty, 2) identity-affirming mentorship that acknowledges and provides professional support to AGEP faculty holistically, recognizing all parts of their identity and 3) inclusive professional development that equips all engineering faculty and institutional leaders with skills to implement inclusive practices and equips AGEP faculty for career advancement. In this paper, we will discuss the process of creating a leadership team to address these focus areas and assess the processes and procedures that currently exist at the three institutions as we begin to institutionalize these change efforts. We provide an overview of the project and efforts to date. We will also present our process for engaging in our initial self-study evaluation and next steps. 

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5. Fostering a sense of belonging in STEM mentoring of underrepresented minority (URM) students Through use of Common Factors. The Chronicles of Mentoring and Coaching

   Stallsmith V. and Chavez E. ( December 2022 , The chronicle of mentoring coaching)

   ABSTRACT Over the last 30 years over 30,000 articles and chapters have been published related to mentoring, with over 40% focused on mentoring students in STEM disciplines. What have we learned from this voluminous literature and what concepts stand out as needing further attention? A review of the literature indicates that mentoring of underrepresented minoritized (URM) students involve attention to the professional development of these students, active engagement in research activities, and a willingness and ability to develop a strong relationship that supersedes the aspects of traditional mentoring activities. Psychology graduate programs have long been known to teach and develop the skills necessary to help students foster strong therapeutic relationships. The foundational interpersonal skills taught in domains of psychology (e.g., counseling psychology, social psychology) are directly relevant to other relationship-building scenarios, such as mentor/mentee dyads. Budding psychologists typically learn therapeutic techniques that help build trusting relationships with clients that hold different identities than their own. But these skills apply beyond client/therapist relations and could be used to inform intensive/inclusive mentoring approaches with URM students, especially when the mentor holds a different identity. The training techniques proposed can be adapted for both formal and informal forms of mentoring and may enhance a student’s sense of belonging, which is the strongest predictor of science identity development and success in STEM. This paper will focus on elements necessary to develop a strong relationship between URM students and their mentors based on the development of a therapeutic relationship using concepts from theories related to the Common Factors (Rosenzweig, 1936). These theories posit that the development of a meaningful client/therapist relationship and behavior change requires attention to four common factors: therapist qualities or in this case mentor qualities, change processes or how students are trained, treatment structures which are specific techniques, and development of a strong relationship. These factors can easily be applied to create a truly inclusive mentoring model. 

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