WIP - Creating, Living & Sustaining Partnerships between  Community Colleges and B.S.-Granting Colleges of Engineering:  Theory, Tools & Practices

Jane Lehr; Dominic Dal Bello; Daniel Almeida; Eva Schiorring; Erica Garcia; Fred Depiero; Jamie Bettencourt; John Oliver; Lizabeth Thompson; Jeff Jones; Victoria Siaumau

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 15
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--42094
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/42094
Download Count: 178

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Paper Authors

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Jane Lehr California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

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Dr. Jane L. Lehr is the Director of the Office of Student Research and Professor in Ethnic Studies and Women’s, Gender & Queer Studies at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She is also Director of the CSU Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Student Participation (LSAMP) in STEM Program at Cal Poly and affiliated faculty in the Center for Engineering, Science & Mathematics Education (CESAME); the department of Computer Science & Software Engineering; and the Science, Technology & Society Program. Dr. Lehr previously served as elected co-chair of the Science & Technology Taskforce of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA), and as a Postdoctoral Research Officer at the Centre for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) at King's College, University of London. Her graduate training is in Science & Technology Studies and Women's Studies at Virginia Tech and her teaching and research focus primarily on the complex relationships between gender, race, culture, science, technology, and education.

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Dominic Dal Bello Allan Hancock College

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Awardee, Outstanding Teaching Award, ASEE/Pacific Southwest Section, 2022.

Professor, Engineering, Allan Hancock College, a California Community College in Santa Maria, California.
Chair, Two-Year College Division.
Vice Chair, Community Colleges, ASEE Pacific Southwest Section

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Cal Poly, Computer Engineering

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Lizabeth Thompson California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

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Dr. Lizabeth Thompson is the Director of General Engineering and a professor in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. She holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Cal Poly, SLO, a MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering and an MBA from University of Southern California, and a PhD in Education from University of California, Santa Barbara. She has been at Cal Poly for nearly 30 years and has held various positions on campus including Co-Director of LAES, Director of Women’s Engineering Programs, and CENG Interim Associate Dean. Although she has taught over 25 different courses she current teaches Financial decision making, First year engineering, Senior project, and Change management. Her research is in Engineering Education where she has received $9.8 million of funding from NSF as either PI or Co-PI. She researches equitable classroom practices, integrated learning, and institutional change. She spent the 2019-2020 academic year at Cal State LA where she taught and collaborated on research related to equity and social justice. With her colleagues at Cal State LA she recently received an NSF grant called Eco-STEM which aims to transform STEM education using an asset-based ecosystem model. She is also a Co-PI on an NSF S-STEM grant called ENGAGE which is working to make a more robust transfer pathway for local Community college students. Dr. Thompson is a Co-PI on an NSF ADVANCE grant called KIND with other universities within the CSU. She is a co-advisor to Engineers without Borders, Critical Global Engagement, and oSTEM at Cal Poly.

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Jeff Jones Class4me.com

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Victoria Siaumau California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

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Incoming PhD student at UCSD

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Abstract

This work-in-progress poster identifies and describes tools and practices for creating, living, and sustaining partnerships between community colleges and B.S.-granting colleges of engineering and computer science by drawing from our experiences in a multi-institutional partnership funded via an NSF S-STEM ENGAGE (Engineering Neighbors: Gaining Access, Growing Engineers) program designed to support pre-transfer, low-income, academically talented engineering and computer science students where participating institutions include two California Community Colleges – Allan Hancock College and Cuesta College – that are highly-ranked Hispanic-Serving Institutions and a predominantly white College of Engineering at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in the California State University system. More broadly, the partnership was established to strengthen the transfer pathway between the university and the community colleges, while supporting individual transfer students. The partnership is shaped by multiple mutual commitments. First, we recognize the expertise and assets of each participating individual and institution (Yosso, 2005), challenging the dynamic in which community colleges are viewed through a “deficit cognitive frame” (Bensimon, 2005) by B.S.-granting institutions. Second, together we are fully committed to equity-mindedness – described by Bensimon, Dowd & Witham (2016) as an approach that is “color-conscious”; recognizes “that beliefs, expectations, and practices assumed to be neutral can have outcomes that are racially disadvantageous”; takes institutional “responsibility for the elimination of inequality”; and is “[a]ware that while racism is not always overt, racialized patterns nevertheless permeate policies and practices in higher education institutions.” Third, the goal of our work together is to “address root causes” rather than just “manage symptoms” (Weiston-Serdan, 2017; Saetermoe, et al 2017) of the highly stratified and oppressive worlds in which we live, learn, and work. Our collaboration has been aided by a tool developed by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College and the Aspen Institute, Essential Transfer Practice (ETP). ENGAGE Project partners are using the tool to first document a baseline or current state and then track changes over time to transfer practices. This includes activities and policies both within each institution and between the institutions. This tool has provided opportunities to see areas of inequities and institutional barriers that would have remained invisible without this collaboration and the ETP tool. Via this and other concrete examples, our hope is that our life-giving collaboration can be an example for other B.S.-granting universities of how to engage and value their community college partners. And that we can all re-imagine all kinds of partnerships as a site for institutional and world transformation.

Citation
Format

Lehr, J., & Dal Bello, D., & Almeida, D., & Schiorring, E., & Garcia, E., & Depiero, F., & Bettencourt, J., & Oliver, J., & Thompson, L., & Jones, J., & Siaumau, V. (2022, August), WIP - Creating, Living & Sustaining Partnerships between Community Colleges and B.S.-Granting Colleges of Engineering: Theory, Tools & Practices Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--42094

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This work-in-progress poster identifies and describes tools and practices for creating, living, and sustaining partnerships between community colleges and B.S.-granting colleges of engineering and computer science by drawing from our experiences in a multi-institutional partnership funded via an NSF S-STEM ENGAGE (Engineering Neighbors: Gaining Access, Growing Engineers) program designed to support pre-transfer, low-income, academically talented engineering and computer science students where participating institutions include two California Community Colleges – Allan Hancock College and Cuesta College – that are highly-ranked Hispanic-Serving Institutions and a predominantly white College of Engineering at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in the California State University system. More broadly, the partnership was established to strengthen the transfer pathway between the university and the community colleges, while supporting individual transfer students. The partnership is shaped by multiple mutual commitments. First, we recognize the expertise and assets of each participating individual and institution (Yosso, 2005), challenging the dynamic in which community colleges are viewed through a “deficit cognitive frame” (Bensimon, 2005) by B.S.-granting institutions. Second, together we are fully committed to equity-mindedness – described by Bensimon, Dowd & Witham (2016) as an approach that is “color-conscious”; recognizes “that beliefs, expectations, and practices assumed to be neutral can have outcomes that are racially disadvantageous”; takes institutional “responsibility for the elimination of inequality”; and is “[a]ware that while racism is not always overt, racialized patterns nevertheless permeate policies and practices in higher education institutions.” Third, the goal of our work together is to “address root causes” rather than just “manage symptoms” (Weiston-Serdan, 2017; Saetermoe, et al 2017) of the highly stratified and oppressive worlds in which we live, learn, and work. Our collaboration has been aided by a tool developed by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College and the Aspen Institute, Essential Transfer Practice (ETP). ENGAGE Project partners are using the tool to first document a baseline or current state and then track changes over time to transfer practices. This includes activities and policies both within each institution and between the institutions. This tool has provided opportunities to see areas of inequities and institutional barriers that would have remained invisible without this collaboration and the ETP tool. Via this and other concrete examples, our hope is that our life-giving collaboration can be an example for other B.S.-granting universities of how to engage and value their community college partners. And that we can all re-imagine all kinds of partnerships as a site for institutional and world transformation.
AU  - Jane Lehr
AU  - Dominic Dal Bello
AU  - Daniel Almeida
AU  - Eva Schiorring
AU  - Erica Garcia
AU  - Fred Depiero
AU  - Jamie Bettencourt
AU  - John Oliver
AU  - Lizabeth Thompson
AU  - Jeff Jones
AU  - Victoria Siaumau
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - WIP - Creating, Living & Sustaining Partnerships between  Community Colleges and B.S.-Granting Colleges of Engineering:  Theory, Tools & Practices
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/42094
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--42094
ER  -