Paper Authors

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Creating Community Outreach Partnerships That Help Improve the Pipeline of Underrepresented

Minorities in Engineering

Barbara A. Christie

Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering

Loyola Marymount University

Abstract

The Center for Student Success (CSS) is designed to improve the recruitment and

retention of women and underrepresented minorities in the College of Science and Engineering

at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). In 2001, LMU wanted to do more to improve our

chances of recruiting underrepresented students and created The Science and Engineering

Community Outreach Program (SECOP). SECOP is a two-week residential summer program

with an engineering focus. It is a partnership between LMU and five academic enrichment

programs including Young Black Scholars in Inglewood and American Indian Clubhouse in

Downtown Los Angeles. Since inception, 100 students from 40 high schools have participated

with outstanding results. After collecting data on 59 students who attended SECOP and

graduated from high school, 44% selected engineering majors (26/59) and 38% are female

engineering majors (15/39). These statistics are three times higher than the national average of

underrepresented engineering students (12%) and twice as high for female engineering students

(20%). This article discusses the methods used to develop a valuable and meaningful program

that supports our community, improves the pipeline of engineering students and benefits our

University.

1

• Citation

• Format
  • APA
  • APA - LaTeX bibitem
  • MLA
  • MLA - LaTeX bibitem
  • Bibtex
  • EndNote - RIS

Christie, B. (2006, June), Creating Community Outreach Partnerships That Help Improve The Pipeline Of Underrepresented Minorities In Engineering Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--347