Collaborative Research: CMN PEEC II Project: Providing for the Education of American Indian Engineers

College Of The Menominee Nation, Keshena WI

Investigators

Abstract

A goal of the Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP) is to increase the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) instructional and research capacities of specific institutions of higher education that serve the Nation's indigenous students. The PEEC-II track provides support for studies or educational research conducted by institutions that have had earlier Pre-Engineering Education Collaborative (PEEC) awards. The intent of PEEC-II is to capture, analyze, and disseminate the impact of these awards on the participating institutions, faculty, or students, and their communities. PEEC and PEEC-II are partnerships between TCUP and the Directorate for Engineering. The College of Menominee Nation (CMN) and the University of Wisconsin Madison (UWM) will build on the results of infrastructure and partnership development funded in their initial PEEC award to strengthen the pathways for students working to earn a bachelor's degree in engineering. They will address the intriguing question of what factors affect American Indian student educational both decisions to start and motivation to complete a degree in engineering. The project has three aims that include 1) addressing environmental support for Native students at UWM, 2) building student self-efficacy in areas relevant to engineering degree completion, and 3) improving understanding of how Native American student values influence educational and career development decisions. The intellectual merit within the collaborative proposal is the investigation of evidence-based interventions for both students (e.g., self-efficacy development, skills training) and institutions (e.g., bias training for faculty). The project will also investigate the impact of student values on career development decisions, something that could change national models of how these decisions are supported and understood. This is on top of the development of the capacity to support American Indian students seeking and earning bachelor's degrees in engineering. The broader impact of the project is the potential increase in the number of American Indian students earning engineering degrees, increased awareness of STEM (particularly engineering) careers amongst American Indian K-12 students through outreach activities, and the clear potential impact of this model of student/institution interventions and how they may affect understanding of Native American decision making related to STEM careers.