Conference Session

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Division Technical Session 1

Collection

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Authors

Lucie Guertault, North Carolina State University; Tamecia R. Jones, North Carolina State University at Raleigh; Eric Steven Hall, North Carolina State University; Praveen Kolar, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Biological and Agricultural Engineering

isusually jointly administered by the colleges of engineering and agriculture and integratesengineering with agricultural, biological, food, ecological, environmental, and chemical systemsto develop innovative solutions to sustainable food, fuel, and fiber. As a part of this program,students in their final year are required to complete a capstone design project that fulfills thedegree requirements. These capstone design projects, as also suggested by [1] [2], involveaddressing engineering problems by combining theoretical and practical, and critical thinkingskills acquired in the classroom, laboratories, and field visits during the preceding three years.Besides, soft skills such as team building, written and oral communications, project and

Conference Session

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Division Technical Session 2

Collection

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Authors

Rachel Ibach, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Jennifer Keshwani, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Deepak R. Keshwani, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Sydney E. Everhart, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Leah Sandall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Biological and Agricultural Engineering

ofemployability skills, and strengthening of their own self-efficacy and confidence to pursue acareer in agSTEM.Youth are guided through career exploration, college majors, and the development ofemployability skills, the new industry term for soft skills by their mentor and ambassador inregular mentoring sessions. Youth are able to connect with their mentor and ambassador throughemail, phone calls, or video calls to accommodate schedules and participate wherever they arelocated. During these mentoring sessions mentors and ambassadors are provided with discussionprompts, activities, and other resources relevant to the assigned topic for that cycle. The topics ofthese cycles are tied to the desired objectives and educational goals to ensure

Conference Session

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Division Technical Session 2

Collection

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Authors

Lisa Deane Morano, University of Houston, Downtown; Vassilios Tzouanas, University of Houston, Downtown

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Biological and Agricultural Engineering

presentation and other important professional soft skills. Students were also asked torespond to open questions about the program. Key highlights from the annual assessments andcomments by the external program evaluator are summarized in the following paragraphs. For simplicitywe have focused on the data from the last cohort of the program, but it is representative of previous years.a. DiversityUHD is a Minority Serving Institution and a Hispanic Serving Institution which serves a large segment ofthe city’s underrepresented population. As the program at this university would automatically have aracially diverse group of students we focused on making sure there was also a diversity of students basedon additional parameters of socioeconomics and