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1. Recruiting and Retaining Low-Income Engineering Students Across Four Institutions During a Pandemic: Progress and Lessons Learned from a Track 3 S-STEM Grant

   Castles, R. ; Venters, C. ; and Goodman, C ( June 2022 , 2022 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition)

   In January 2020 East Carolina University (ECU) in partnership with Lenoir Community College (LCC), Pitt Community College (PCC), and Wayne Community College (WCC) was awarded an S-STEM Track 3 Grant (Grant number: 1930497). The purpose of this grant was to support low-income students at each partner institution, to research best practices in recruiting and retaining low-income students at both universities and community colleges, and to research how such programs influence the transfer outcomes from two-year to four-year schools. This grant provides scholarship support for two cohorts of students, one starting their engineering studies in Fall 2020 and the other starting their engineering studies in Fall 2021. Each cohort was to be comprised of 40 students including 20 students at ECU and 20 students divided among the three partnering community colleges. In addition to supporting student scholarships, this grant supported the establishment of new student support mechanisms and enhancement of existing support systems on each campus. This project involved the creation of a faculty mentoring program, designing a summer bridge program, establishing a textbook lending library, and enhancing activities for students in a living-learning community, expansion of university tutoring initiatives to allow access for community college students, and promoting a newmore »peer mentoring initiative. The program emphasizes career opportunities including promoting on-campus career fairs, promoting internship and co-op opportunities, and bringing in guest speakers from various industry partners. A goal of the program was to allow community college students to build relationships with university students and faculty so they can more easily assimilate into the student body at the university upon transfer. This paper presents the challenges presented to the project in the first year and the pivoting that occurred due the pandemic. Data is presented regarding recruitment of scholars in both cohorts and retention of scholars from year 1 to year 2.« less
2. Work in Progress: NSF S-STEM Program: Recruitment, Engagement, and Retention: Energizing and Supporting Students with Diverse Backgrounds in Mechanical Engineering

   Jamie R. Gurganus, Liang Zhu ( June 2019 , ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   Recognizing current and future needs for a diverse skilled workforce in mechanical engineering and the rising cost of higher education that acts as a barrier for many talented students with interests in engineering, the NSF funded S-STEM project at a state university focuses resources and research on financial support coupled with curricular and co-curricular activities designed to facilitate student degree attainment, career development, and employability in STEM-related jobs. This program has provided enhanced educational opportunities to more than 90 economically disadvantaged and academically talented undergraduate students in the Mechanical Engineering Department in the past eight years. It is expected that approximately 45 academically talented and financially needy students, including students transferring from community colleges to four-year engineering programs will receive scholarship support in the next 5 years, with an average amount of $6,000 per year for up to four years to earn degrees in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). Through scholarships and supplemental support services, this program promotes full-time enrollment and will elevate the scholastic achievement of the S-STEM scholars, with a special emphasis on females and/or underrepresented minorities. It will provide a holistic and novel educational experience combining science, engineering, technology and medicine tomore »improve student retention and future career prospects. The project builds on an established partnership between the state university and community colleges to improve and investigate the transfer experience of community college students to four-year programs, student retention at the university, and job placement and pathways to graduate school and employment. A mixed methods quantitative and qualitative research approach will examine the implementation and outcomes of proactive recruitment; selected high impact practices, such as orientation, one-to-one faculty mentoring, peer mentoring, and community building; participation by students in research-focused activities, such as research seminars and undergraduate experiences; and participation by students in career and professional development activities. In this paper, preliminary data will be presented discussing the attitudes and perceptions of the s-stem scholars and comparing students in scholarly programs and non-programmed situations. This research was supported by an NSF S-STEM grant (DUE-1742170).« less
3. NSF S-STEM Program: Recruitment, Engagement, and Retention: Energizing and Supporting Students with Diverse Backgrounds in Mechanical Engineering (Work-in-Progress)

   Jamie R. Gurganus, Liang Zhu ( June 2019 , ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   Recognizing current and future needs for a diverse skilled workforce in mechanical engineering and the rising cost of higher education that acts as a barrier for many talented students with interests in engineering, the NSF funded S-STEM project at a state university focuses resources and research on financial support coupled with curricular and co-curricular activities designed to facilitate student degree attainment, career development, and employability in STEM-related jobs. This program has provided enhanced educational opportunities to more than 90 economically disadvantaged and academically talented undergraduate students in the Mechanical Engineering Department in the past eight years. It is expected that approximately 45 academically talented and financially needy students, including students transferring from community colleges to four-year engineering programs will receive scholarship support in the next 5 years, with an average amount of $6,000 per year for up to four years to earn degrees in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). Through scholarships and supplemental support services, this program promotes full-time enrollment and will elevate the scholastic achievement of the S-STEM scholars, with a special emphasis on females and/or underrepresented minorities. It will provide a holistic and novel educational experience combining science, engineering, technology and medicine tomore »improve student retention and future career prospects. The project builds on an established partnership between the state university and community colleges to improve and investigate the transfer experience of community college students to four-year programs, student retention at the university, and job placement and pathways to graduate school and employment. A mixed methods quantitative and qualitative research approach will examine the implementation and outcomes of proactive recruitment; selected high impact practices, such as orientation, one-to-one faculty mentoring, peer mentoring, and community building; participation by students in research-focused activities, such as research seminars and undergraduate experiences; and participation by students in career and professional development activities. In this paper, preliminary data will be presented discussing the attitudes and perceptions of the s-stem scholars and comparing students in scholarly programs and non-programmed situations. This research was supported by an NSF S-STEM grant (DUE-1742170).« less
4. Board 3: Engineering Technology Scholars-IMProving Retention and Student Success (ETS-IMPRESS): First Year Progress Repo

   Alaraje, Nasser ; Meadows, Lorelle A. ; Fiss, Laura Kasson ; Amato-Henderson, Susan L. ; Hambroff, Guy C. ; Sergeyev, Aleksandr ; Raffaelli, Kellie H. ; Irwin, John L. ( June 2019 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Recognizing a national and regional need for a highly trained engineering technology STEM workforce with baccalaureate degrees, the Engineering Technology Scholars – IMProving Retention and Student Success (ETS-IMPRESS) project provides financial support and an ecosystem of high-impact curricular and co-curricular activities to increase the success of academically talented students. A total of 12 first-time students will be supported for four years and 36 students transferring from community colleges will be supported for two years. The goals of the project are to (1) increase the number and diversity of students pursuing degrees in engineering technology (first-generation, underrepresented students, women, and veterans); (2) add to the body of knowledge regarding best practices in Engineering Technology and promote employment; and (3) contribute to the literature on self-efficacy. The project brings together engineering technology academic programs that are offered through the School of Technology and programs in the Honors College, an inclusive and unique college designed around high-impact educational practices. The project provides a unique opportunity to engage academically talented engineering technology students in activities designed to foster leadership, technical know-how, and employability skills for technology fields that actively recruit and employ graduates from diverse backgrounds and communities. By focusing on a broad rangemore »of students, the project will investigate the relationship between student characteristics and student success through (1) a mixed methods pre/post research design that examines differences in motivation, self-efficacy and professional skills and (2) a matched cohort comparison study of transfer students that examines participation/non-participation in engineering technology programs of study with honors’ college elective programming. The paper will address first year project activities including the ETS-IMPRESS recruitment, and advertisement plan to recruit first-year and community college transfer students. The paper will address the student eligibility and selection process, the recruitment of the first cohort scholars, and finally the orientation program including the summer bridge undergraduate research experience.« less
5. Delahanty, C., Herring, S., Timby, T.A., & Genis, V. (2022, August), Innovative Curriculum: Collaboration Between Technician Education and Workforce Development. Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference Content Access, https://peer.asee.org/collections/131

   Delahanty, C. ; Herring, S. ; Timby, T.A. ; & Genis, V. ( August 2022 , 2022 ASEE Annual Conference Content Access)

   Bucks County Community College (Bucks) is aware of the growing and urgent need for workforce ready technicians to fill numerous industry positions. Our NSF ATE grant #1902075 entitled, "Increasing the Number of Workforce Ready Engineering Technicians in Southeastern PA” is a collaboration between Bucks credit and non-credit sides of the college, and Drexel University as our four-year partner. This grant focuses on workforce readiness of engineering technicians to prepare them for the workforce of the future. We are accomplishing this by including our Center for Workforce Development (CWD) certifications as additional pathways into our occupational engineering technology (ET) major, enhancing manufacturing experiences within the major, and embedding soft skills training and career exploration throughout our ET program. We have restructured our ET major to make it more cross-curricular to accommodate diverse industry needs, and to require a greater business aspect. Within this restructuring, we have created courses in different modalities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are committed to increasing awareness of STEM education to underrepresented groups through K-12 STEM-related outreach initiatives, and are in the process of establishing a plan to recruit such groups into our technician education programs. In addition to the services already in place atmore »Bucks, development of our recruitment plan includes professional development sessions of faculty and staff, discussion sessions at national conferences, Professional Learning Communities, special convenings of students, and outreach initiatives to school districts with a higher percentage of underrepresented groups. We expect that fulfillment of the goals of this grant will increase the number of engineering technicians in our region, and become a blueprint for community colleges nationwide.« less