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The National Science Foundation established the Rising Scholars program at Purdue University to promote the cultivation of professional mentor support networks for qualified low socio-economic students in STEM fields. In collaboration between the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department and the Minority Engineering Program, Rising Scholars students, in three cadres of 21 students total, were recruited from general admissions to the institution, who had previously expressed an initial desire for engineering. These students were provided with a defined path of activities in college designed to enhance their professional mentoring networks among STEM specialists. Rising Scholars students were provided with a partial scholarship and intensive academic guidance. These students participated in multiple networking and social activities sponsored by the program administrators. Academic results for the Rising Scholars students against their matched pair grouping for graduation rate and GPA will be presented. Students who socialized well and developed stronger social networks within the high-touch, student-centric environment fared better academically and outperformed their matched pair direct-to-engineering admits to the university. Small-to-moderate sized academic engineering departments are well-suited to provide a similar nurturing culture for support and belonging that can help all students succeed. 

The National Science Foundation awarded funds in 2016 through the Division of Undergraduate Engineering in an S-STEM program to investigate a connection between student support networks and success within STEM fields in higher education. A Web of Support characterization model, based upon work with indigenous populations, was modified using these ‘network’ predictors of success for discrimination at the collegiate matriculation point. Promising students with low socio-economic status that successfully passed screening by the modified admissions process were then interviewed by a committee of academic professionals. If selected for participation in the Rising Scholars program, students were provided with an annual $6,500 four-year scholarship. Students had to agree to follow the program guidelines and provide data to the researchers. The Rising Scholars program was designed to be a ‘high-touch’ path through the undergraduate academic world that incorporated several known best practices in higher education. Incoming Rising Scholar students were matched with students receiving both direct engineering admits and exploratory studies admits that had similar background and academic indicators that matched the Rising Scholar’s profile. First year retention for students in engineering and the Rising Scholars program was significantly better than for exploratory studies. Those trends remained in the second-year data. Rising Scholars have significantly better GPAs moving into their second year, compared to both engineers and exploratory studies students. The significance in GPA over engineering students continues into the second year. These positive results indicate that it would likely be advantageous to transition this program to a multi-university project to more effectively demonstrate the robustness of the process for Rising Scholar students. 

This paper is a work-in-progress, focused on the utilization of the Rising Scholars Program to introduce minority students to experiential engineering projects within Agricultural and Biological Engineering. Traditional admissions processes at top institutions predominately utilize standardized test scores when comparing student applications. The equity of these high-stakes tests most severely affects students of low socioeconomic status (SES). The NSF-sponsored program, Rising Scholars: Web of Support used as an Indicator of Success in Engineering, was created to investigate whether alternative admission criteria could be used to identify low-SES applicants who would excel within STEM fields in higher education, even if they did not have the superior standardized testing metrics preferred by current admissions processes. The students underwent a pre-selection process to determine their eligibility. The overall experience was designed to enhance student connectivity within the collegiate environment. The Gallup-Purdue Index (2014) found that feeling supported and having learning experiences that illustrated learned principles produced a graduate who would be engaged in their work. The Rising Scholar (RS) program utilized a prescribed path through college designed to enhance these features. These positive experiences are exemplified by the Purdue Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) department and how they approach the overall educational process. Faculty are motivated in their teaching, research, and extension efforts by a focus on meeting the world’s grand challenges, in which most college students are also highly interested. The Rising Scholars Program utilized the Vertically Integrated Projects model to introduce their students to real-life projects at the freshman and sophomore level, which could potentially be continued on into graduate school. Several of the RS students have worked with the Purdue ABE Hog Cooling Pad Project and these students have conducted research, prototyping, and design modifications on the pad. They have participated in five experimental bench tests of the design and four consecutive live animal studies related to the pad performance. Within these experiments, Rising Scholars students were able to work on real-life projects, with real-world impact. The preliminary hypothesis question is: Are future graduates of the Rising Scholars Program more likely to thrive in all areas of well-being due to their collegiate experiences? 

Traditional admissions processes at top institutions predominately utilize standardized test scores when comparing student applications. The equity of these high-stakes tests most severely affects students of low socioeconomic status (SES). The NSF-sponsored program, Rising Scholars: Web of Support used as an Indicator of Success in Engineering, was created to investigate whether alternative admission criteria could be used to identify low-SES applicants who would excel within STEM fields in higher education, even if they did not have the superior standardized testing metrics preferred by current admissions process. The quality of the student’s support networks and their readiness for higher education as determined by an in-person interview with the selection committee were used as input data for a Web of Support characterization model to predict a student’s likely collegiate success at the matriculation point. There were three cohorts with a total of 21 students chosen for the program during their entry to the university which included applicants of low-SES and under-represented minority status. A significant programmatic element for these students was their involvement in experiential activities through pre-existing programs in the institution. It was reasonably assumed that the Rising Scholars student population could be positively influenced toward long-term educational commitment through experiential activities providing realistic views of professional activity. The prescribed collegiate path for these students contained an experiential educational element for each summer between admission and graduation. A summer research project with a faculty-directed laboratory before the sophomore year and a self-directed research project prior to the junior year were used to build project management experience, along with a paid, external internship in a professional organization likely to hire within the student’s major. Based upon the limited data collected so far, the researchers seem to have been conclusively demonstrated that a structured, ‘high-touch’ program with a heavy experiential component can successfully move low-SES students with STEM inclinations through a highly ranked institution. Counselling to reduce the anxiety surrounding the collegiate process for first generation students and some form of scholarship support to reduce the financial burden are both crucial underlying elements to this program’s success, but the importance of hands-on, experiential activities that help the student visualize their professional career cannot be under-estimated. 

Three broad and enduring issues have been identified in the professional formation of engineers: 1) the gap between what students learn in universities and what they practice upon graduation; 2) the limiting perception that engineering is solely technical, math, and theory-oriented; and 3) the lack of diversity (e.g., representation of a wide range of people, thought, and approaches toward engineering) and lack of inclusion (e.g., belonging and incorporating different perspectives, values, and ways of thinking and being in engineering) in many engineering programs. Although these are not new challenges in professional formation, these issues are highly complex, interconnected, and not amenable to simple solution. That is, they are “wicked” problems, which can be best understood and mitigated through design thinking, a human-centered approach based on empathy, ideation, and experimentation, as it is a useful perspective for addressing complex and ambiguous issues. Thus, this NSF-funded RFE study utilizes a design thinking approach and research activities to explore foundational understandings of formation and diversity and inclusion in engineering while concurrently addressing three project objectives: 1) To better prepare engineers for today’s workforce; 2) To broaden understandings of engineering practice as both social and technical; and 3) To create and sustain more diverse and inclusionary engineering programs. In this paper, we provide an overview of the multi-year project and discuss emerging findings and key outcomes from across all phases of the project. Specifically, we will showcase how the research has identified the concurrent ways that understandings of diversity and inclusion are impacted significantly by the local contexts (and cultures) of each department while being compounded by the larger College/University/discipline-wide understandings of who is an engineer and what skills legitimize the identity of “an engineer.”