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1. Work-in-Progress: The Design and Implementation of EFRI-Research Experience in Mentoring Catalyst Initiative Paper

   Qaqish, O. B. ( July 2021 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   The National Science Foundation (NSF) Emerging Frontiers and Innovation (EFRI) Research Experience and Mentoring (REM) program nationally supports hands-on research and ongoing mentorship in STEM fields at various universities and colleges. The NSF EFRI-REM Mentoring Catalyst initiative was designed to build and train these robust, interactive research mentoring communities that are composed of faculty, postdoctoral associates and graduate student mentors, to broaden participation of underrepresented groups in STEM research who are funded through NSF EFRI-REM. This work-in-progress paper describes the first five years of this initiative, where interactive training programs were implemented from multiple frameworks of effective mentoring. Principal investigators, postdoctoral associates and graduate students are often expected to develop and establish mentoring plans without any formal training in how to be effective mentors. Since the start of this initiative, over 300 faculty, postdoctoral associates and graduate students have been trained on promising practices, strategies, and tools to enhance their research mentoring experiences. In addition to formal mentor training, opportunities to foster a community of practice with current mentors and past mentor training participants (sage mentors) were provided. During these interactions, promising mentoring practices were shared to benefit the mentors and the different mentoring populations that the EFRI-REMs serve. Themore »community of practice connected a diverse group of institutions and faculty to help the EFRI-REM community in its goal of broadening participation across a range of STEM disciplines. Those institutions are then able to discuss, distill and disseminate best practices around the mentoring of participants through targeted mentored training beyond the EFRI-REM at their home institutions. Not only does the EFRI-REM Catalyst initiative focus on broadening participation via strategic training of research mentors, it also empowers mentees, including undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral associates, in their research experiences through an entering research undergraduate course and formal mentoring training workshops. Future expansion to other academic units (e.g., colleges, universities) builds on the research collaborations and the initiatives developed and presented in this work-in-progress paper. A long-term goal is to provide insights via collaborative meetings (e.g., webinars, presentations) for STEM and related faculty who are assembling an infrastructure (e.g., proposals for the ERFI-REM program) across a range of research structures. In summary, this work-in-progress paper provides a description of the design and implementation of this initiative, preliminary findings, expanding interactions to other NSF supported Engineering Research Centers, and the future directions of the EFRI-REM Mentoring Catalyst initiative.« less
2. A Change Model that Helps Faculty Mentor Underrepresented Minorities (URM) Doctoral Students for the STEM Professoriate

   Grasso, M ; Campbell, CD. ( December 2020 , The chronicle of mentoring coaching)

   In response to the well-documented themes of unique challenges URM doctoral student experience (tokenism, stereotyping, microaggressions, etc.), faculty mentoring remains an especially critical resource to change the trajectory for URM students in graduate education. The purpose of this study is to examine the first two years of change in institutional culture which will increase the number of URM doctoral students who pursue the STEM professoriate. The primary research question asked is “Can a focus on developing and mentoring faculty catalyze change in the culture and practices of their doctoral programs to increase faculty diversity?” Based on the idea that faculty are drivers of lasting institutional change, three diverse public universities collaborate to adapt and implement an institutional change project, called “AGEP-NC Alliance: A Change Model for Doctoral to Faculty Diversity in STEM,” that prioritizes cultural frameworks for deep change in postsecondary education (Gumpertz et al., 2019). Key model components include faculty learning communities; use of national faculty mentoring networks; and use of institutional diversity data. Culturally relevant mentoring is among several approaches of interest to STEM reformers to shift the focus to institutional-level change and not student deficiencies. Operationalized as “cultural integrity,” the approach calls upon students’ racial and ethnicmore »backgrounds as assets for reform in pedagogies and learning activities, while valuing those backgrounds as critical ingredients for acquiring academic capital and career success (Tierney, 1999). Kezar’s (2018) cultural framework for institutional change emphasizes knowledge formation in context as well as analysis of espoused meaning and values organizational members maintain. The researchers present the AGEP-NC Alliance as a narrative, rich case study and collaborative mentoring model, an approach allowing participant researchers to detail sustained data use in collaborative social interaction (Patton, 1990). Results will be shared that highlight faculty as cultural change agents, and organizational learning as a cultural process. Preliminary results show evidence of institutional change at several levels from classroom and laboratory practices to key departmental policies.« less
3. Impacts Resulting from a Large-Scale First-Year Engineering and Computer Science Program on Students’ Successful Persistence Toward Degree Completion

   Ragusa, Gisele ; Allen, Emily L. ; Menezes, Gustavo B. ( June 2020 , ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings 2020)

   There is a critical need for more students with engineering and computer science majors to enter into, persist in, and graduate from four-year postsecondary institutions. Increasing the diversity of the workforce by inclusive practices in engineering and science is also a profound identified need. According to national statistics, the largest groups of underrepresented minority students in engineering and science attend U.S. public higher education institutions. Most often, a large proportion of these students come to colleges and universities with unique challenges and needs, and are more likely to be first in their family to attend college. In response to these needs, engineering education researchers and practitioners have developed, implemented and assessed interventions to provide support and help students succeed in college, particularly in their first year. These interventions typically target relatively small cohorts of students and can be managed by a small number of faculty and staff. In this paper, we report on “work in progress” research in a large-scale, first-year engineering and computer science intervention program at a public, comprehensive university using multivariate comparative statistical approaches. Large-scale intervention programs are especially relevant to minority serving institutions that prepare growing numbers of students who are first in their family tomore »attend college and who are also under-resourced, financially. These students most often encounter academic difficulties and come to higher education with challenging experiences and backgrounds. Our studied first-year intervention program, first piloted in 2015, is now in its 5th year of implementation. Its intervention components include: (a) first-year block schedules, (b) project-based introductory engineering and computer science courses, (c) an introduction to mechanics course, which provides students with the foundation needed to succeed in a traditional physics sequence, and (d) peer-led supplemental instruction workshops for calculus, physics and chemistry courses. This intervention study responds to three research questions: (1) What role does the first-year intervention’s components play in students’ persistence in engineering and computer science majors across undergraduate program years? (2) What role do particular pedagogical and cocurricular support structures play in students’ successes? And (3) What role do various student socio-demographic and experiential factors play in the effectiveness of first-year interventions? To address these research questions and therefore determine the formative impact of the firstyear engineering and computer science program on which we are conducting research, we have collected diverse student data including grade point averages, concept inventory scores, and data from a multi-dimensional questionnaire that measures students’ use of support practices across their four to five years in their degree program, and diverse background information necessary to determine the impact of such factors on students’ persistence to degree. Background data includes students’ experiences prior to enrolling in college, their socio-demographic characteristics, and their college social capital throughout their higher education experience. For this research, we compared students who were enrolled in the first-year intervention program to those who were not enrolled in the first-year intervention. We have engaged in cross-sectional 2 data collection from students’ freshman through senior years and employed multivariate statistical analytical techniques on the collected student data. Results of these analyses were interesting and diverse. Generally, in terms of backgrounds, our research indicates that students’ parental education is positively related to their success in engineering and computer science across program years. Likewise, longitudinally (across program years), students’ college social capital predicted their academic success and persistence to degree. With regard to the study’s comparative research of the first-year intervention, our results indicate that students who were enrolled in the first-year intervention program as freshmen continued to use more support practices to assist them in academic success across their degree matriculation compared to students who were not in the first-year program. This suggests that the students continued to recognize the value of such supports as a consequence of having supports required as first-year students. In terms of students’ understanding of scientific or engineering-focused concepts, we found significant impact resulting from student support practices that were academically focused. We also found that enrolling in the first-year intervention was a significant predictor of the time that students spent preparing for classes and ultimately their grade point average, especially in STEM subjects across students’ years in college. In summary, we found that the studied first-year intervention program has longitudinal, positive impacts on students’ success as they navigate through their undergraduate experiences toward engineering and computer science degrees.« less
4. Enlisting historically excluded undergraduates in the effort to extend knowledge of West Antarctica’s bedrock, through course-based undergraduate research experiences (cures) and Art-Science initiatives

   Siddoway, Christine ; Thomson, Stuart ; Taylor, Jennifer ; Pepper, Marty ; Furlong, Heather ; Ruggiero, Joe ; & Reed, Brandon ( September 2022 , 29th West Antarctic Ice Sheet workshop)

   An enormous reserve of information about the subglacial bedrock, tectonic and topographic evolution of Marie Byrd Land (MBL) exists within glaciomarine sediments of the Amundsen Sea shelf, slope and deep sea, and MBL marine shelf. Investigators of the NSF ICI-Hot and NSF Linchpin projects partnered with Arizona Laserchron Center to provide course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) for from groups who do not ordinarily find access points to Antarctic science. Our courses enlist BIPOC and gender-expansive undergraduates in studies of ice-rafted debris (IRD) and bedrock samples, in order to impart skills, train in the use of research instrumentation, help students to develop confidence in their scientific abilities, and collaboratively address WAIS research questions at an early academic stage. CUREs afford benefits to graduate researchers and postdoctoral scientists, also, who join in as instructional faculty: CUREs allow GRs and PDs to engage in teaching that closely ties to their active research, yet provides practical experience to strengthen the academic portfolio (Cascella & Jez, 2018). Team members also develop art-science initiatives that engage students and community members who may not ordinarily engage with science, forging connections that make science relatable. Re-casting science topics through art centers personal connections and humanizes science, to promotemore »understanding that goes beyond the purely analytical. Academic research shows that diverse undergraduates gain markedly from the convergence of art and science, and from involvement in collaborative research conducted within a CURE cohort, rather than as an individualized experience (e.g. Shanahan et al. 2022). The CUREs are offered as regular courses for credit, making access equitable via course enrollment. The course designation carries a legitimacy that is sought by students who balance academics with part-time employment. Course information is disseminated via STEM Bridge programs and/or an academic advising hub that reaches students from groups that are insufficiently represented within STEM and cryosphere science. CURE investigation of Amundsen Sea and WAIS problems is worthy objective because: 1) A variety of sample preparation, geochemical methods, and scientific best-practices can be imparted, while educating students about Antarctica’s geological configuration and role in the Earth climate system. 2) Individual projects that are narrowly defined can readily scaffold into collaborative science at the time of data synthesis and interpretation. 3) There is a high likelihood of scientific discovery that contributes to grant objectives. 4) Enrolled students will experience ambiguity and instrumentation setbacks alongside their faculty and instructors, and will likely have an opportunity to withstand/overcome challenges in a manner that trains students in complex problem solving and imparts resilience (St John et al., 2019). Based on our experiences, we consider CUREs as a means to create more inclusive and equitable spaces for learning to do research, and a basis for a broadening future WAIS community. Our groups have yet to assess student learning gains and STEM entry in a robust way, but we can report that two presenters at WAIS 2022 came from our 2021 CURE, and four polar science graduate researchers gained experience via CURE teaching. Data obtained by CURE students is contributing to our NSF projects’ aims to obtain isotope, age, and petrogenetic criteria with bearing on the subglacial bedrock geology, tectonic and landscape evolution, and ice sheet history of MBL. Cited and recommended works: Cascella & Jez, 2018, doi: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00705 Gentile et al., 2017, doi: 10.17226/24622 Shanahan et al. 2022, https://www.cur.org/assets/1/23/01-01_TOC_SPUR_Winter21.pdf Shortlidge & Brownell, 2016, doi: 10.1128/jmbe.v17i3.1103 St. John et al. 2019, EOS, doi: 10.1029/2019EO127285.« less
5. 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 inmore »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.« less