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Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Six-Day Residential Summer Program for Underrepresented Students

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Conference

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Columbus, Ohio

Publication Date

June 24, 2017

Start Date

June 24, 2017

End Date

June 28, 2017

Conference Session

Minorities in Engineering Division Technical Session 2

Tagged Division

Minorities in Engineering

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--28302

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/28302

Download Count

667

Paper Authors

biography

Reyna M. Flores University of Texas, Austin Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-8436-1756

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Reyna is the Recruitment Coordinator for the Equal Opportunity in Engineering (EOE) Program at the University of Texas at Austin. The EOE Program strives to recruit, retain, and graduate underrepresented students in the Cockrell School of Engineering. For over five years, Reyna has worked to support underrepresented students reach their higher education goals through various college access programs in the state of Texas.

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biography

Enrique Dominguez University of Texas, Austin

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Mr. Enrique Dominguez is the Director of the Equal Opportunity in Engineering Program at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He has been Director for over 4 years and is currently the Region D Chair for the National Association for Multicultural Engineering Program Advocates (NAMEPA). Enrique graduated from the Cockrell School of Engineering with a Civil Engineering degree and pursued industry experience for seven years where he held positions such as Project Engineer, Lead University Recruiter, Logistics Engineer, Cost Engineer and Project Manager.

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Abstract

The educational achievement gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines in America continue to persist among underrepresented groups. Underrepresented groups include Hispanics, African American, Native American, and Native Hawaiian students. While underrepresented student enrollment has been increasing in secondary schools, the achievement gap in STEM widens as students’ progress from kindergarten to high school.

The most effective way to turn things around is to provide coursework in middle and high school to give students a sense of what STEM courses entail at the college level. One current approach to address the achievement gap is the implementation of the MITE Enrichment Program for high school juniors at the University of Texas at Austin. MITE provides the opportunity to discover engineering through faculty-led sessions for high school juniors at the Cockrell School of Engineering. It also serves as a recruitment strategy to increase the number of underrepresented minority groups. In 2016, the Cockrell School of Engineering was ranked third in producing minority engineering graduates in the nation and ranked first in the state of Texas.

Students will complete an evaluation at the end of the MITE Enrichment Program. The evaluation will assess students’ desire to study engineering in college, which engineering discipline they wish to pursue UT Austin, the likelihood of applying, and other learning outcomes. MITE participants are tracked to determine how many apply, receive acceptance, and enroll into the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Ten years of MITE data is shared in this paper to review recruitment trends related to underrepresented students in engineering.

Flores, R. M., & Dominguez, E. (2017, June), Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Six-Day Residential Summer Program for Underrepresented Students Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28302

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