Search for: All records

Within engineering, there is a need for more diverse faculty representation to support and serve as role models for underrepresented students. To attract, support, and retain diverse candidates, the pipeline and preparation of faculty must be better addressed. To investigate effective supports, the University of Massachusetts Lowell S-STEM program recruits and supports low-income, high-achieving students who wish to pursue a career in higher education. The UML S-STEM program supports scholars for four years, from their third year in undergraduate studies through the completion of either a master's degree or a qualifying exam within a Ph.D. program. To prepare the students in the program for future faculty positions, they are grouped in cohorts and meet monthly. In this report, we present our programming activities to develop self-awareness and social awareness. The activities of the monthly meetings center around building social consciousness through first developing students’ self-awareness in the context of their engineering journeys, and then through a more general investigation of their understanding of the importance and impact of cultural orientations within and beyond engineering. The aim of the programming was to inspire awareness of the different experiences and needs of students in engineering education. Participants were given brief surveys at the end of each activity, and they participated in end-of-year focus groups. The results indicated the approach taken helped students reflect on their own cultural orientation to teaching and learning, as well as that of their peers.