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With a project built on the Model of Co-Curricular Support for Undergraduate Engineering Students, in collaboration with three partnering community colleges was awarded a Multi-Institutional Track 3 S-STEM Grant in January 2020. The intention of the project was to recruit 2 cohorts of scholars with 40 students each. One cohort was to start their pursuit of an engineering degree in Fall 2020 and the other in Fall 2021. Each cohort was to be comprised of 20 students who started at as freshmen and 20 students who intended to get an associate’s degree from one of the partnering community colleges and transfer to a university to complete the BS in engineering. Despite some early challenges in recruiting students and implementing planned programs due to the Covid-19 pandemic, three cohorts of low-income students have been recruited and supported by scholarships valued at up to $10,000 per year. In addition to scholarship support, various other support mechanisms have been implemented including a week-long summer bridge program for incoming students, a peer mentoring program, a textbook lending library, faculty mentoring, and various collaborative programs involving career speakers, design challenges, and professional development opportunities. With the first cohort of students now entering their senior year and several community college students having already transferred to the university, this paper discusses the recruitment and retention of scholars, details of program activities, and the progress scholars have made towards an engineering degree. This paper also draws comparisons between the scholar cohorts and all students entering the engineering program in the same semester in order to identify differences in GPA and retention.
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Recruiting and Retaining Low-Income Engineering Students Across Four Institutions During a Pandemic: Progress and Lessons Learned from a Track 3 S-STEM Grant
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 new 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.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1930497
- PAR ID:
- 10388918
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2022 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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