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1. Building a Sense of Community for Freshman Civil Engineering Students

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36762  

   Marti, Erica ; Khan, Eakalak ; Gajurel, Amit ; Tugadi, Neil Christian ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   Across the country, less than two-thirds of engineering students persist and earn a degree in engineering. A considerable amount of research on the topic has been conducted, leading to a few key ideas on why students leave engineering. In particular, disinterest in the curriculum, a limited sense of belonging, perception of inadequate academic ability, and disconnect between learning style and instruction mode are some reasons that students depart engineering. Consequently, many first-year programs aim to address one or more of these issues. The ABC program at XXX seeks to improve undergraduate civil engineering and construction management education, as well as increase retention and graduation by specifically focusing on students and curriculum in the first two years of the civil & environmental engineering and construction management (CEEC/CM) programs. Retention and graduation rates are on the lower side of national averages; therefore, faculty at the institution are taking the lead and making changes within the department. One aspect of the program is community cohesion building (CCB), where first-year students create connections, engage in community and engineering design projects, and gain exposure to CEEC/CM professions. Specific objectives are to increase the sense of learning community among students and between students and faculty, as well as increase retention in the first two years. Through biweekly meetings, participants in CCB build connections with freshman CEEC/CM peers, upper level CEEC/CM undergraduate students, CEEC graduate students, and CEEC/CM faculty. Participants also engage in the engineering design process and compete in a national engineering design challenge geared toward freshman and sophomore students. This paper describes the first one-and-a-half years of CCB implementation of a five-year grant. We present the program structure, challenges, changes, and successes. This information should prove useful to other institutions who are in the process of implementing new first-year programs, especially for institutions who have similar characteristics (i.e., urban setting, commuter school, highly diverse, high proportion of first generation students). Program evaluation focuses on the following items related to CCB objectives: 1) increase in sense of belonging as measured by an increase in social networks (tool: student survey), and 2) increase in CEEC/CM retention between freshman/sophomore and sophomore/junior years (tool: institutional data). 

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2. Building a Sense of Community for Freshman Civil Engineering Students

   Marti, E. J ; Khan, E ; Gajurel, A ; Tugadi, N. C. ( July 2021 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   null (Ed.)

   Across the country, less than two-thirds of engineering students persist and earn a degree in engineering. A considerable amount of research on the topic has been conducted, leading to a few key ideas on why students leave engineering. In particular, disinterest in the curriculum, a limited sense of belonging, perception of inadequate academic ability, and disconnect between learning style and instruction mode are some reasons that students depart engineering. Consequently, many first-year programs aim to address one or more of these issues. The ABC program at XXX seeks to improve undergraduate civil engineering and construction management education, as well as increase retention and graduation by specifically focusing on students and curriculum in the first two years of the civil & environmental engineering and construction management (CEEC/CM) programs. Retention and graduation rates are on the lower side of national averages; therefore, faculty at the institution are taking the lead and making changes within the department. One aspect of the program is community cohesion building (CCB), where first-year students create connections, engage in community and engineering design projects, and gain exposure to CEEC/CM professions. Specific objectives are to increase the sense of learning community among students and between students and faculty, as well as increase retention in the first two years. Through biweekly meetings, participants in CCB build connections with freshman CEEC/CM peers, upper level CEEC/CM undergraduate students, CEEC graduate students, and CEEC/CM faculty. Participants also engage in the engineering design process and compete in a national engineering design challenge geared toward freshman and sophomore students. This paper describes the first one-and-a-half years of CCB implementation of a five-year grant. We present the program structure, challenges, changes, and successes. This information should prove useful to other institutions who are in the process of implementing new first-year programs, especially for institutions who have similar characteristics (i.e., urban setting, commuter school, highly diverse, high proportion of first generation students). Program evaluation focuses on the following items related to CCB objectives: 1) increase in sense of belonging as measured by an increase in social networks (tool: student survey), and 2) increase in CEEC/CM retention between freshman/sophomore and sophomore/junior years (tool: institutional data). 

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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 to 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. 

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4. Developing a Leadership Community of Practice Toward a Healthy Educational Ecosystem

   Nazar, C.. ; Thompson, L. ; Bowen, C. ; Menezes, G. ( June 2023 , 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Student success in educational ecosystems is a primary goal of leadership efforts. Yet, power and privilege affect the racial, classist, and gendered implications of STEM education work in K-12 education as well as higher education. Interventions have been done at various levels, but despite the hard work of implementation, this has not resulted in dramatic improvements to STEM educational ecosystems or student engagement within them. Often, these implementations are done at the faculty/student level or institutional level but not at the departmental leadership level. The NSF-supported Eco-STEM Project proposes to establish a healthy educational ecosystem that supports all individuals (students, faculty, and staff) to thrive. Project activities are guided by ecosystem paradigm measures that support a culturally responsive learning/working environment; make teaching and learning rewarding and fulfilling; and emphasize community assets to enhance motivation, excellence, and success. For this work-in-progress paper, we describe the development of a leadership community of practice, comprised of department chairs of science and engineering departments, at [university name redacted], a large state-funded comprehensive majority minority master’s granting institution in the Southwest United States. In the year-long Leadership Community of Practice (L-CoP), the Fellows work on unpacking issues of power and privilege in their roles as STEM leaders and educators. During the Fall semester of 2022, the Fellows participated in four sessions. They engaged in readings, videos, active-learning activities, and critically reflective dialogues to facilitate discussion and reflection on identity, agency, the culture of power in STEM, and interventions and change in higher education. The L-CoP starts with Fellows reflecting on their social and professional identities and how their identities influence their teaching and leadership philosophies. Then Fellows are introduced to the framework of the culture of power in science--where they explore the social, cultural, and political impacts of preparing for a STEM college education. Finally, they explore theories and models of change for STEM higher education spaces. Through this curriculum, we aim to examine mental models to deconstruct notions that uphold the culture of power in science by instead building counternarratives with faculty and students in their departments. Through dialogues within the L-CoP, leaders discuss classroom/program climate, structure, and vibrancy to better support healthy educational ecosystems, as well as their participation in these systems. We are currently in the middle of our first implementation of the L-CoP. The first cohort consists of six L-CoP Fellows with highly diverse positionalities; there is racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, and all Fellows are full professors in the tenure line and chairs of their respective departments. We present details of the L-CoP, including the formation of the Fellow cohort, training of the facilitators, structure of the sessions, and initial results of our mid-program survey. The survey results provide insights into potential improvements to our tools and program. We also share some of the Fellows’ and facilitators’ reflections demonstrating a shift toward an ecosystem mindset. We prefer to present this work as a poster at the 2023 ASEE Annual Conference. 

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5. Board 314: Implementing the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Model at a Public Urban Research University in the Southeastern United States

   Preza, Chrysanthe ; Ivey, Stephanie S. ; Stewart, Craig O. ( June 2023 , ASEE annual conference exposition)

   Underproduction, low retention, and lack of diversity in STEM disciplines, especially engineering, are significant challenges nationally, but are particularly acute in regions, both urban and rural, where educational access is limited. Leveraging our institutional location at a public urban research university in a city marked by its connection to its rural surroundings, we seek to address these challenges by implementing the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) model at our university with the support of an NSF IUSE grant. The VIP model is based on active learning and enables tiered mentoring from students at all academic years, thereby providing the opportunity of role modeling from upper-level undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty. In addition, programs based on the VIP model are accessible to all students (not just high performing students) and provide a meaningful networking environment. We use our implementation of the VIP model to foster STEM identity growth and a sense of belonging, while increasing and celebrating diversity in engineering and other STEM disciplines. Our VIP program leverages best practices from the well-established VIP model and adapts it to address unique aspects of our university’s community and interests. Specifically, the program includes freshmen and will also serve as a recruitment tool for local community college students. It employs a tiered mentoring approach and activities that prepare students for research and foster networking. The long-term goal of the VIP experience is to create a research culture and community in engineering and eventually across STEM disciplines that is inclusive and supportive of students from diverse backgrounds. An additional focus is to showcase the value of diversity in research and innovation through the program. Both the research culture and increased acknowledgement of the value of diversity are designed to enhance students’ STEM identity, which is important for retention in the major and career. The purpose of this paper is to report on the planning and launch of our VIP program in Fall 2022, focusing on the PIs’ experiences implementing the program and on our first cohort’s (N = 12; 7 women; 4 Black/African American; 2 Hispanic) experiences participating in the program during their first semester. Specifically, this paper will describe the challenges and opportunities of implementing the VIP program and how the VIP model has been adapted to align with unique aspects of our institution and student body. We will also report preliminary analyses of student journal data collected from the first cohort throughout the Fall semester, where students described their initial expectations/hopes and concerns for the semester; their activities and emotional responses during the semester; and finally, their reflections on their experiences, positive or negative, throughout the semester. The paper will conclude by offering lessons learned from the first year of this project as well as directions for moving forward. 

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