Conference Session

Recruiting and Building Diversity

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Nancy Horvath; Cecilia Lucero

Session No. 2492 Graduate Student Socialization in Science and Engineering: A Study of Underrepresented Minorities’ Experiences Cecilia Lucero, Ph.D. The National GEM ConsortiumIntroductionSince the early 1970s, when the underrepresentation of females and U.S. racial/ethnic groups inthe engineering professions became an exigent national concern, academia, industry, andgovernment agencies have undertaken practices that have improved the participation of minoritygroups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This improvement,however, has been questionable. Recently, for example, Dr

Conference Session

Attracting Young MINDs

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Sylvanus Nwosu; Robert Goldbach; Mike Lovell

Americans students, for example, made somegains to narrow the gap between 1970 and the 1990s, such gains have been halted by complexfactors, including poor teacher quality, inadequate school resources, test bias and poverty 1-3.Studies sponsored by the National Science Foundation also show that although the preparationfor college is improving for African American students, the percent of high school graduateswho enroll in college has not increased due to deficiencies in quantitative literacy in K-12curricula and the lack of activities that relate science, mathematics, engineering and technology(SMET) to real world experience4. The American Association for the Advancement of ScienceProject 2061 has noted that merely "covering" the topic or teaching

Conference Session

ABET Criterion 4 and Liberal Education

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Dana Elzey; Dan Bauer; Paxton Marshall; Kathryn Neeley

context of engineering practice is made real to students at every level from the freshman year through the culminating sequence described in this paper. (Pilot programs are currently under way at the freshman level as well.) 4.) Fully explor e the pr oblem definition pr ocess. One of the primary advantages of considering a problem in context is that one gets a clearer sense of what the problem really is and sees the truth of Joseph Bordogna’s assertion that “Engineering is not just about doing things right, but also about doing the right things.”The three-course sequence on which this paper focuses begins with a one-credit course forsecond semester engineering juniors. Titled ENGR 302: Engineering in Context