CSEMS Scholarship Program

Wright State University, Dayton OH

Investigators

Abstract

The Computer Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Scholarships (CSEMS) program at Wright State University (WSU) provides student scholarships to motivate and enable the completion of higher education degrees in science, engineering or technology fields by scholarly but financially disadvantaged students. The program is in accord with the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998 which addresses the national workforce need to increase the number of graduates in CSEMS fields. A three-pronged effort was designed to provide engineering education opportunities for engineering parallel students from Ohio Community Colleges, recipients of NSF-CSEMS scholarships from internal/external WSU market sources, graduate CSEMS fellows from major Ohio urban cities and Wright STEPP Minority Engineering Program (MEP) alum. The outcomes of the CSEMS program at WSU are improved education for students, increased retention to degree completion, improved professional development/employment, increased graduate fellows from underrepresented groups, and partnerships between WSU and local corporate entities. The primary objective is accomplished by project management leadership in quality sciences, cognitive/non- cognitive selection methods, operations research, active learning, and technical instruction (assessment, planning, teaching and evaluation) supported by existing Wright State University student-support infrastructure. The use of Adaptive Branching Techniques was also researched as a method of skill assessment to eliminate test bias for underrepresented group candidates, improve placement in math courses, and shorten the time to graduation using Pareto, Gap and Value analysis.