Paper ID #34079An NSF-LSAMP Model for the Successful Transition of UnderrepresentedStudents into STEM Majors and BeyondMrs. Lauren J. Donovan, Stony Brook University Lauren Donovan is Assistant Director for STEM Smart programs. After graduating from Stony Brook University with a BA in Anthropology, Lauren’s career in higher education began in the non-profit con- servation organization within the Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University. This environment grew Lauren’s proficiencies for grant proposal and research, and program development. After a decade long tenure in Anthropology, Lauren transitioned to the
theseparticipants, 71% have presented their work at national professional society meetings, and two ofthem have become co-authors on three papers. Of the 17 who have since graduated, 13 are eitherin engineering graduate school or in STEM industry positions.REU students took part in an introductory bootcamp on the fundamentals of systems modelingand applied biostatistics and had multiple opportunities to present their research progressthroughout the summer to experts in the field. They also received professional developmenttraining through workshops and seminars on research ethics, technical communication, andlaunching careers in systems bioengineering. Post-REU surveys of participants revealed that100% of respondents rated their overall experience with the
new, ABET-accreditedengineering programs at Western Washington University (WWU) have faced unique challengesin recruitment and retention, particularly in the first two years for pre-engineering students.Building on the success of prior S-STEM awards in other disciplines at WWU, the proposedprogram provides a systematic sequence of academic, social, and career support servicesspecifically designed to enhance the success of engineering students during these first two yearsof undergraduate study.The primary program goal is to ensure the engineering programs offer an equitable pathway intoengineering careers, particularly for low-income, academically talented students. In addition toproviding financial support for participants, the BEES program
and Ph.D. in Engineer- ing and Science Education from Clemson University.Dr. Allison Godwin, Purdue University, West Lafayette Allison Godwin, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research focuses what factors influence diverse students to choose engineering and stay in engineering through their careers and how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belongingness and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education. She is the recipient of a 2014 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Educational Research and
also explains the career placement, student retention, and community collegetransfer rates.Project ActivitiesThis NSF-funded project was initially planned for three years but was extended to four years dueto the COVID situation. The project includes five major activities as listed in Table 1. In thesubsequent sections, these activities and the project evaluation plan will be explained in detail. Table 1. Project activities. Activity Description (i) Design, develop, and offer the new course and laboratory (renewable energy) (ii) Summer K-12 workshops through the CPCP at NJIT (iii) Faculty development workshops for the instructors of other 2- and 4
mixes technical skills, undergraduate research, professional development, personaldevelopment, team projects, and career advising. The stakes are low, the group is small (20STEM students), and almost all activities are performed within the scheduled class time. Theintent is to bring these students together to increase all aspects of engagement and make themmore successful in school and eventually in a STEM career. The engagement data collected canthen be analyzed to determine which, if any, aspects of engagement are good predictors ofretention and graduation. Once we develop a reliable way to track changes in studentengagement levels and understand how those levels relate to success, we can use thatinformation to design more impactful early
? Experimental Findings on Factors Driving Faculty Perceptions of Tenure Candidates in STEMIntroductionHiring, academic reviews, and tenure and promotion (T&P) are the most importantcheckpoints along the academic career path in STEM. The hiring process shapes the sub-field and demographic composition of academia, while annual reviews dictate advancementto promotion, awards, and salary. Tenure is a particularly high-stakes juncture, as it sets upa decades-long relationship with faculty colleagues, and grants life-long job security whilealso conferring a badge of honor and legitimacy in the global scientific community. Whatdetermines whether or not a scholar passes through these critical academic checkpoints?Evaluation by
homeinstitution and aims to encourage more students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursuedegrees and careers in science and engineering [2].The deadly SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has had widespread effects across institutionsof higher education, research, and industry. While many states issued Shelter-in-Place orders anduniversity campuses closed indefinitely, REU administrators made difficult decisions regardingthe feasibility of offering a Summer 2020 program [3]. Unfortunately, thousands of studentswere notified that their internship had been cancelled.Located in an urban environment with a rigid Shelter-in-Place order and high rates of COVID-19infection, the University of California, Berkeley campus indefinitely closed on March 17, 2020
were interviewed in January 2021. The interviewsfollowed a semi-structured format. Topics included, but were not limited to, mentors’perceptions of student needs, the mentor training experience, the roles that mentors play, and thebenefits of mentoring. We also interviewed seven student mentees (5 male, 2 female) in May of2020. Topics for these interviews included prior experience in computing, reasons for joiningPINC, career plans, and program supports. The interviews were conducted via videoconferenceand lasted approximately 45 minutes. They were transcribed in their entirety and coded by theproject’s external evaluator using a combination of deductive and inductive methods (Graebneret al., 2012).4. Results and Discussion Due to the
mentoring of students, especially women and underrepresented minority students, and her research in the areas of recruitment and retention. A SWE Fellow and ASEE Fellow, she is a frequent speaker on career opportunities and diversity in engineering. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2016Highlights of Over a Decade of University/Community College PartnershipsAbstractIn 2002, an NSF sponsored (# 0123146) S-STEM academic scholarship program for upperdivision engineering and computer science (designated as ENGR) students materialized atArizona State University with about half of the students being transfer students. This directedattention to the need for more support for potential and actual transfer ENGR
: 1) the development of acertificate program in high value manufacturing; 2) offering professional development toworking professionals in the area of high value manufacturing; and 3) educating teachers aboutadvanced manufacturing with a goal of recruiting their students into manufacturing careers. Thiswork describes the lessons learned through each of the project aspects.The design of the High Value Manufacturing Certificate Program required close collaborationbetween both institutions. The issues that arose during this development process includedpersonnel turnover, approval timelines and processes, and agreement on the course content. Theauthors will relay how they navigated these issues to get the program created and approved.The creation
support from A Scholarship Program to Increase Retention in Engineering (ASPIRE):Improving Work-Study-Life Balance. The goal of the program was to increase retention ofsophomore and junior engineering students who show academic promise but are at risk of notcompleting their studies due to financial concerns and/or life-work-study balance issues. Inaddition to financial support, ASPIRE provided scholarship recipients with opportunities toparticipate in activities that contribute to persistence such as tutoring, faculty mentoring,conferences, presentations and career planning workshops. Sixty-one students have beenawarded scholarships in this five-year period.This paper examines the effectiveness of ASPIRE to help students alleviate financial
Manufacturing Institute note that the U.S. faces a need fornearly 3.5 million manufacturing jobs over the next decade due to baby boomer retirement. Twomillion of these jobs are likely to go unfilled, largely because young people do not view theindustry as a career destination [9].In addition, a recent national survey showed a decline in the number of undergraduate studentsmoving on to graduate school after graduation [10]. The Council of Graduate Schools has notedthat the U.S. must continue to develop highly skilled human talent through graduate school tomaintain its leadership role in global innovation and discovery [11].In addition to NSF, other federal agencies such as NASA [12], Department of Energy [13],Department of Homeland Security [14], and
included to obtain feedback about their co-curricular activities and theenvironment of their undergraduate institutions. Another set of questions refer to sources ofencouragement that students might have had when deciding to attend graduate school. Thus far,the program has been tremendously successful in attaining its primary objective. Collectedoutcome measures have shown that 76% of the students who participate in the program attend Page 26.1538.2graduate school in engineering/science and 6% attend medical school upon receiving their B.S.degree.IntroductionA key factor for motivating students to pursue advanced degrees and careers in science
) convenes annually and has done so for the past 25years. The IAC comprises representatives from industry, government agencies, academia, andother segments, offering advice on current industry trends and the latest state-of-art technologies.These close partnerships with industrial companies enable our students to explore careers andinternship opportunities with leading engineering enterprises. Several IAC members are formergraduates actively engaged in addressing the professional needs of the department.Through collaboration with the IAC and former students now employed in the service industry,we have identified a gap in our workforce education and a demand for skilled PLC and Roboticstechnicians. The city stands as a prominent job hub for banking
, withfeedback from the event being uniformly positive.Fall 2023. During the fall 2023 semester, scholars attended weekly cohort meetings. Meetingsincluded a tour of WCU’s prototyping facilities and machining labs (freshmen only), a collectionof invited business leaders from the area, ideation sessions, and speakers from campus resourceunits. Speakers/subject areas are listed below. Scholars typically showed great interest in thetopic at hand, with questions from scholars being posed at length. WCU Center for Career and Professional Development Review of past senior capstone projects Former industrial designer and bookstore entrepreneur WCU Corporation for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) WCU Library – market analysis
Paper ID #31529Diversifying the Engineering Pipeline through Early Engagement ofNeurodiverse LearnersMs. Constance M. Syharat, University of Connecticut Constance M. Syharat is a Research Assistant at the University of Connecticut as a part of the NSF Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (NSF-RED) project, ”Beyond Accommodation: Leveraging Neurodiversity for Engineering Innovation”. In her time at the University of Connecticut she has also worked as a Research Assistant for NSF CAREER project ”Promoting Engineering Innovation Through Increased Neurodiversity by Encouraging the Participation of Students with ADHD” and
on ordinary engineering students. Yet, in order to achieve broaderparticipation in undergraduate research experiences, it is these students to whom undergraduateresearch opportunities need to be provided. Therefore, it is necessary to understand how theseexperiences can mesh with the career goals of these students, and how they can best meet thestudents’ expectations and needs.The primary purpose of this NSF-sponsored work is to develop definitions of what constitutes asuccessful undergraduate research experience for a wide range of engineering students.Particular attention is devoted to students whose academic background and performance is solid,but not outstanding. For such students, some of the benefits seen in high-achieving students
become moreengaged in, and develop a deeper understanding of, their field. In some cases, this Page 26.441.3engagement helps to increase the retention of students if they begin research early in theirundergraduate careers. This engagement can also give students more confidence in theirabilities and increases their interest in attending graduate school. However, someundergraduate students are actually dissuaded from continuing their studies as they learnmore about their discipline and experience some of the frustrations typical of researchendeavors [8].In addition to improving retention rates and increasing the number of students pursuinggraduate studies
College of Engi- neering’s interdisciplinary, industry sponsored, senior project class as well as course in mechanics and design. He also conducts research in the areas of creative design, machine design, fluid power control, and engineering education.Dr. Allison Godwin, Purdue University at West Lafayette Allison Godwin, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research focuses what factors influence diverse students to choose engineering and stay in engineering through their careers and how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering fos- ter or hinder belongingness and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S
implemented by student teams under the supervision of the instructors. Given the newapproach, the key question is the degree to which the change has altered student learning andattitudes. For the purposes of this paper, the aspects of student learning on which the authorshave focused are conceptual understanding and scientific reasoning. Further, they have decidedto assess conceptual understanding via a materials science concept inventory10. Scientificreasoning is assessed by evaluating the proposal, progress reports, and final report. Studentattitudes, including inclinations to pursue careers in engineering and material science, areassessed using Pittsburgh Freshman Engineering Attitudes Scale11, 12. This paper presentspreliminary findings on
Families’ Engineering, Design, and Inventive PracticesAbstractBlack students belong in STEM career pathways but often experience a diminished sense ofbelonging in their college programs. Through informal conversations, the authors learned thatsome Black students felt they had not had the formal pre-college engineering training andextracurricular experiences that they perceived their peers had and therefore they did not feelthey possessed engineering knowledge. There is little research that identifies the diverseengineering family practices of Black families and further finds ways to connect these practicesto formal higher education learning environments. Acknowledging the rich history of Blackengineering, design, and invention that occurs in Black
into STEMfields through the cultivation of their mentor support networks. Rising Scholars students wereprovided with a scholarship and had a defined path of activities in college designed to enhancetheir professional mentoring network. They were prearranged to participate in a pre-freshmanacademic bootcamp, an on-going faculty-directed research project, a self-directed researchproject, and an internship. Students attended seminars and produced written reflections of theirvarious individual experiences on the path to a professional career. Three cadres of 21 studentstotal, who had expressed a previous interest in engineering, were admitted to a general studiesprogram and provided intensive guidance and an active social group. The Rising
University WISE@OU NSF ADVANCE Partnerships for Adaptation, Implementation, and Dissemination (PAID) grant. She is also in charge of faculty mentoring in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at OU. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2023 Enriching the REU experience through student-led outreach activitiesIntroductionThe benefits of undergraduate student experiences are well known. Students participating inresearch experience for undergraduates (REU) programs report increased skills and self-confidence, a greater sense of empowerment as learners and more motivation to pursue science orengineering careers and graduate degrees [1-8]. REU programs
year) was modified to try to promote more audience participation.IntroductionUndergraduate research is a high impact practice where studies in traditional learningenvironments show gains in disciplinary knowledge and skills [1], [2], persistence [3], [4], STEMidentity and attitudes [5], [6], [7], transferable skills [8], [9], and career ambition [10]. Onlinestudents have a strong interest in participating in undergraduate research [11], [12], and onlinefaculty have shown to have comparable levels of interest in regards to mentoring undergraduateresearch as residential faculty [13]. To help address some of the unique challenges for onlinestudents to participate in undergraduate research, the authors developed the Research ScholarsProgram at
implementing plannedprograms due to the Covid-19 pandemic, three cohorts of low-income students have beenrecruited and supported by scholarships valued at up to $10,000 per year. In addition toscholarship support, various other support mechanisms have been implemented including aweek-long summer bridge program for incoming students, a peer mentoring program, a textbooklending library, faculty mentoring, and various collaborative programs involving career speakers,design challenges, and professional development opportunities. With the first cohort of studentsnow entering their senior year and several community college students having already transferredto the university, this paper discusses the recruitment and retention of scholars, details ofprogram
mastery-based course structures.Dr. Shannon Katherine Gilmartin, Stanford University Shannon K. Gilmartin, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab and Adjunct Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Her expertise is in education and workforce development in science and engineering fields. She has particular interest in access to and equity in engineering education and practice. She studies the experiences of underrepre- sented students in engineering classrooms, the transition to first jobs and the ”early career” for women in engineering, and the trajectories to senior leadership in technology settings.Ms. Anna M. Mostoller, Elizabethtown CollegeDr
Paper ID #32427Is it Rocket Science or Brain Science? Developing an Approach to MeasureEngineering IntuitionDr. Elif Miskioglu, Bucknell University Dr. Elif Miskio˘glu is an early-career engineering education scholar and educator. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering (with Genetics minor) from Iowa State University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Ohio State University. Her early Ph.D. work focused on the development of bacterial biosensors capable of screening pesticides for specifically targeting the malaria vector mosquito, Anopheles gambiae. As a result, her diverse background also includes
. Department of Energy as well as more than 25 years of experience teaching mathematics, statistics, computer science, and first-year engineering courses in higher education institutions. Currently, she leads a team of faculty who are dedicated to providing first-year engineering students with a high- quality, challenging, and engaging educational experience with the necessary advising, mentoring, and academic support to facilitate their transition to university life and to prepare them for success in their engineering majors and future careers. American c Society for Engineering Education, 2021 Educating the Next Generation of Cybersecurity Experts1.0
pursuing their own research inengineering education thanks in part to NSF’s support of CAREER awards that work to furtherthe ambitions and success of new researchers. Clearly the relatively small investments made byNSF in engineering education have given birth to what is becoming a well-established researchcommunity.Although the engineering education research (EER) community is growing and becoming moreestablished, it still relies heavily on Federal sources, primarily NSF, to support much of itsactivities. Thus like all other disciplines, EER is affected by the relatively flat Federal funding forresearch in recent years. Since policy makers are continually making choices between how tobalance funding between competing needs, it is important for