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Background: Social community is a framework for understanding the importance of social interactions within STEM mentoring programs. This study empirically examined the relationships described in the framework to explore how program elements and social support influenced student involvement.Purpose: Specifically, the study described how two engineering scholar programs that serve underrepresented and underserved students facilitated involvement in communities of practice, a proposed outcome of the social community model.Design: A survey (n = 256) was conducted with participants in both scholar programs and compared to responses of non-participants to learn whether the scholar programs led to greater involvement in communities of practice. Furthermore, interviews (n = 16) with scholar program participants were conducted to learn more about how they became involved in communities of practice.Results: We found that program participants were more likely to be involved in the three communities of practice (student diversity organizations, peer leadership roles, and undergraduate research) than demographically similar non-program participants. Furthermore, we found that mentors (peer leaders, program coordinators, and faculty) provided the necessary social support to encourage participants’ involvement. In particular, the essential role of peer leaders initiated community building and inspired subsequent participation in communities of practice.Conclusions: The social community framework for STEM mentoring programs provides a useful guide for understanding mentoring programs and benefits from examination of case studies to expand discussion of the theory and practices that promote student involvement in communities of practice. 

The mission of the Inclusion Diversity Excellence Achievement (IDEA) Engineering Student Center at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering is to promote equity, community, and success for all engineering students at the University from admission through graduation. The Academic Achievement Program (AAP) originally focused on academic performance (i.e., grades) and is evolving to more fully address the myriad of factors that contribute to the overall success of undergraduate engineering students. The AAP aims to promote a culture of care for students’ personal well-being and academic success within engineering courses by providing just-in-time support and reinforcing attitudes and habits that empower students to succeed. This effort can be broken down into three goals: I) promote a multifaceted understanding of factors that influence student success, II) teach learning attitudes and behaviors for effective learning, and III) provide tools to support proactive advising at the classroom level. To reach these goals, we envision instructional teams (typically made up of faculty and teaching assistants) who have the knowledge and tools to proactively provide students with support based on deep understanding of how factors inside and outside the classroom influence learning. Such instructional teams can more effectively improve the learning experience and student outcomes like persistence. We also envision students with attitudes and habits that help them learn effectively and use supporting resources to overcome any challenges they encounter. To achieve these goals, AAP includes three components at various stages of development, implementation, and assessment: 1) the Engineer Your Success Course for undergraduates, 2) Student Support Planning Checklist and community of practice for instructional teams, and 3) content on effective learning strategies for instructional teams. This paper will present a developing conceptual framework that guides these activities, describe each component, present preliminary findings, and discuss potential next steps.