Collection

2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Linda Ann Riley; Charles Thomas

well as howother engineering departments might take advantage of the federal appropriation and ultimately affect thepipeline of entering engineering freshmen.Background of the STEM Pipeline ChallengeThere are many reasons cited for the increased attention on strengthening mathematics and sciencepreparation of K-12 students. Foremost among those reasons however is the need to equip our futureworkforce with the skills and tools required to compete in a changing global economy. An adequate levelof mathematics and science preparation is seen as a necessity for the many technical professions that willconstitute the workforce of the future. If graduating high school seniors do not have the prerequisiteability in mathematics and science, then the

Collection

2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Qing Li

likely this student will end up choosingengineering (Astin & Astin, 1992; Shuman, et. al., 1999). High school peers’ influence is also found to be agood predictor for successfully graduating with a STEM degree (Leslie, et. al., 1998). Friend’s encouragementplays an important role not only in a student’s college enrollment decision, but also in the retention decision(Bean, 1983). After entering into university, positive peer influence leads to successful education outcomecomes from opportunities like participating in honors program, tutoring other students, living on campus (Leslie,et. al., 1998). On the contrary, lack of student community on campus is found to have negative impact onstudents’ retention (Buyer & Connolly, 2006).Adult

Collection

2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Elif Kongar; Paul Kontogiorgis; Nancy L. Russo; Tarek Sobh

byYildiz Technical University till February 2006. Dr. Kongar is currently an Assistant Professor at BridgeportUniversity. Her research interests include the areas of supply chain management, logistics, environmentallyconscious manufacturing, product recovery, disassembly systems, production planning and scheduling and multiplecriteria decision making.Dr. Tarek M. Sobh received the B.Sc. in Engineering degree with honors in Computer Science and AutomaticControl from the Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt in 1988, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees inComputer and Information Science from the School of Engineering, University of Pennsylvania in 1989 and 1991,respectively. He is currently the Vice President for Graduate Studies and Research