Implementing Student Excellence - A Unique Opportunity

University Of California - Merced, Merced CA

Investigators

Abstract

The University of California at Merced is a completely new campus. It provides a unique intellectual environment for defining an academic culture without having to expend money, time or effort to dismantle pre-existing departmental structures or boundaries. Service learning (SL) experiences are being created for all undergraduate students, to achieve a three-fold impact on engineering education: (1) enhancing the quality of the education, (2) increasing the recruitment, retention and diversity of engineering students and (3) changing the culture of engineering in academia. The unique circumstances at UC Merced are ideal for testing the effectiveness of the SL experience. They are part of the NSF-EPICS program led by Purdue University and have strong support from community organizations. The campus draws its students largely from the predominantly Hispanic community in the region. The PIs are creating a culture of service learning in engineering education, where departmental separations are non-existent and majors only appear on paper. The project has the potential to be a showcase and to make strong contributions in engineering education reform as well as improve recruitment and retention and diversity. Given the school's location, this project has the potential to attract a large Hispanic student base. Because students at all levels participate - freshmen to seniors - the project can have maximum reform impact.