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1. Evolution of STEM Leadership Self Efficacy Within an NSF S-STEM Program

   DeRuntz, B. ; Henson, H. ; Withee, T. ; Hood, O. ( July 2021 , Zone 1 Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   An engineering leadership development program (LDP) at a major midwestern university has received NSF S STEM grant support for the past 10 years and has achieved higher and faster time to graduation rate for engineering transfer students in a peer comparison study ( DeRuntz et.al 2019) ( DeRuntz, et. al 2017) (Palmer, et. al. 2016) ( Kowalchuk , et. al 2013). Through the award of a Track 2 S STEM three years ago, the LDP has now expanded into the STEM majors at the university and has made an important discovery regarding the evolution of Leadership Knowledge among some of the STEM leaders. The participants in the LDP program have shown statistically significant changes on Leadership Self Efficacy Survey ( Bobbio , Manganelli , 2009) and the Motivation to Lead Survey (Chan, Drasgow, 2001) when compared to their peers. We noticed an apparent regression in the Leadership Knowledge data scores. However, upon further examination there appeared to be a response shift bias in these results ( Rohs 1999). In other words, participants rated themselves higher on the pre test and then lower on the post test; even though they had made significant gains as measured in the other program data collected by the external evaluator. This conclusion is further confirmed by interactions and observations recorded by the program Co PIs, coordinator, coaches, and senior leadership. 

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2. The Value of Teaching Leadership Skills to STEM Graduate Students and Postdocs

   https://doi.org/10.58021/S59G6F  

   Strubbe, Linda ; Bosinger, Mia ; Stauffer, Heidi L ; Tarjan, L. Max ( January 2022 , Institute for Scientist & Engineer Educators (ISEE))

   Seagroves, Scott ; Barnes, Austin ; Metevier, Anne ; Porter, Jason ; Hunter, Lisa (Ed.)

   To create and achieve awesome things in the world together, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) professionals need to be able to lead effectively. Leadership can be thought of as “a process of social influence through which an individual enlists and mobilizes the aid of others in the attainment of a collective goal” (Chemers, 2001). In the Institute for Scientist & Engineers Educators’ Professional Development Program (PDP), STEM graduate students and postdocs learned, practiced, and reflected on leadership skills and strategies explicitly. Design Team Leaders (DTLs) practiced leading their teams, all participants facilitated inquiry (led their students in learning), and some (in later years) learned through the inclusive leadership PDP strand. In this panel paper, we reflect on what we learned from these experiences and discuss how we apply PDP leadership training daily in our work beyond the PDP. We review key principles about inclusive leadership, such as building an image as a credible leader; how to lead meetings; and how to build feelings of motivation, belonging, trust, and shared ownership among team members. We also share case studies of our experiences applying PDP leadership training in roles as co-director for an African summer school, facilitator for a physics equity project, middle/high school math and science teacher, mentor for new teachers, teaching professor and online curriculum designer, and project manager for a non-profit. Last, we offer recommendations for stakeholders who want to support STEM graduate students’ and postdocs’ development as inclusive leaders. 

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3. Virtual Internships: Accelerating opportunity through disruption

   Ekstedt, L. ; James, N. ; Jona, K. ; White, E. ; Fleetwood, J ; Paja, S. ( July 2020 , ASEE Global Colloquium on Engineering Education)

   null (Ed.)

   Experiential learning programs like internships and capstone projects are high-impact practices that allow engineering students to build a professional network, apply technical skills in a real-world context, and develop non-academic skills that employers need. In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent school closures impacted the entire engineering education ecosystem, particularly internships and other experiential learning opportunities. Virtual internship, an education intervention developed to broaden participation in experiential learning for non-traditional students, was rapidly deployed to address the disruption to internships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Key challenges that emerged during the implementation process include marketing the new program to existing partners, deciding on a remuneration structure, and navigating IP issues. The paper systematically steps through the implementation process and how the challenges mentioned above were addressed in practice. As life, school and internships return to normal in 2021 and beyond, the Virtual internship intervention can still play a valuable role in the experiential learning landscape. However, higher education institutions may need to intentionally de-couple the educational innovations rapidly developed during the COVID-19 pandemic from being ‘pandemic solutions’ to valuable alternatives that provide equitable and scalable access to educational opportunities and proactively invest in their continued sustainability and growth. 

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4. Undergraduate’s Social Capital and Engineering Professional Skills: Comparison Between Different Types of Institutions

   Li, T. ; Holloway E.A. ; Douglas K. A. ; Martin, J. P. ; Bill, V. ; Guanes, G. ( July 2023 , ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore, MD)

   The purpose of our poster presentation is two-fold: 1) to provide an overview of our NSF project, Pandemic Impact: Undergraduates’ Social Capital and Engineering Professional Skills, and 2) to report our progress and preliminary quantitative findings. We hope to discuss our project and preliminary results with fellow engineering educators and receive feedback. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted engineering education in multiple ways that will continue to be felt for years to come. One of the less understood ways the pandemic has continued to leave a residue on engineering education is how social distancing and online courses altered students’ professional development. Of particular concern are students who were either new to the institution or started their college education during the pandemic. These students have potentially limited opportunities to establish social relationships at their educational institutions compared to students who already developed such relationships when the pandemic-induced online learning took place. The differences in students’ social relationships can have other, more profound impacts on their undergraduate engineering experiences. Research has shown that students’ social relationships provide them with connections to resources and supports essential for navigating an engineering program and help them obtain more opportunities to practice non-technical professional skills [1], [2]. Although social distancing measures diminished and students returned primarily to in-person, the pandemic has altered the development of engineering students in ways not understood. In particular, understanding the nature of students’ social interactions on campus and the types of opportunities for professional development is essential so that instructors and campus staff can respond to the developmental needs of students. As a result, the overarching research question for our project is: How do engineering undergraduates leverage relationships (operationalized as social capital) to gain opportunities to develop professional skills? 

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5. Adapting an NSF-Funded Professional Skills Curriculum to Train Engineers in Industry: A Case Study

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36648  

   Luchini, Mark ; Cribbs, David ; Colbry, Dirk ; Luchini-Colbry, Katy ( July 2021 , Proceedings of the 2021 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   null (Ed.)

   This design-focused practice paper presents a case study describing how a training program developed for academic contexts was adapted for use with engineers working in industry. The underlying curriculum is from the NSF-funded CyberAmbassadors program, which developed training in communication, teamwork and leadership skills for participants from academic and research settings. For the case study described here, one module from the CyberAmbassadors project was adapted for engineers working in private industry: “Teaming Up: Effective Group and Meeting Management.” The key objectives were to increase knowledge and practical skills within the company’s engineering organization, focusing specifically on time management as it relates to project and product delivery. We were also interested in examining the results of translating curricula designed for an academic setting into a corporate setting. Training participants were all from the dedicated engineering department of a US-based location of an international company that provides financial services. The original curriculum was designed for live, in-person training, but was adapted for virtual delivery after the company adopted a 100% remote workforce in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The training was conducted in four phases: (1) train-the-trainer to create internal evangelists; (2) train management to build buy-in and provide sponsorship; (3) phased rollout of training to individual members of the engineering department, contemporaneous with (4) specific and intentional opportunities to apply the skills in normal business activities including Joint Architecture Design (JAD) sessions. Effectiveness was measured through surveys at the engineering management level (before, during, and after training), and through direct discussions with engineering teams who were tracked for four weeks after the training. A number of cultural shifts within the company were observed as direct and indirect outcomes of this training. These include the creation and standardization of a template for meeting agendas; a “grassroots” effort to spread the knowledge and best practices from trained individuals to untrained individuals through informal, peer-to-peer interactions; individuals at varying levels of company hierarchy publicly expressing that they would not attend meetings unless an appropriate agenda was provided in advance; and requests for additional training by management who wanted to increase performance in their employees. As a result of this adaptation from academic to industry training contexts, several key curricular innovations were added back to the original CyberAmbassadors corpus. Examples include a reinterpretation of the separate-but-equal leadership roles within meetings, and the elevation of timekeeper to a controlling leadership role within a meeting. This case study offers valuable lessons on translating training from academic/research settings to industry, including a description of how the “business case” was developed in order to gain approval for the training and sponsorship from management. Future work includes adapting additional material from the CyberAmbassadors program for applications in a business context, and the continued formal and informal propagation of the current material within the company. 

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