ETSTE DCL: Linking Student Assets to Student Success: Pathways to an Engineering Workforce for the Southwest

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at the University of Arizona (UArizona), a public, land-grant, Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). With multiple rural and urban campuses, UArizona serves Southwestern regions across the Arizona, California, and Mexican borders, where there is a significant need for engineers to meet agricultural, energy, semiconductor, and military industry demands. Yet, due to financial and sociocultural factors, a large proportion of individuals in these communities have limited access to high quality postsecondary education. Over its six-year duration, this project will provide scholarships to up to 50 undergraduate students who are pursuing bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline at UArizona. Transfer students will receive up to three years of scholarship support, while those who are directly starting their four-year degree at UArizona will receive up to five years scholarships. In addition to receiving scholarships, students will develop and maintain a portfolio of their academic, cultural, and personal strengths and experiences. This individualized portfolio will serve as the primary resource to provide targeted support services including strengths-based academic advising, mentorship from engineering faculty, and internship and job placements in engineering positions. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The primary objectives are (1) to improve persistence, retention, and graduation rates and placements in engineering among eligible students from rural and urban campuses using intentional asset-based practices, and (2) to investigate differences in assets, outcomes, engineering identities, and placements between students at a rural campus and those at an urban campus. The central tenet of this project is the process of discovering, mapping, and applying students’ assets for their professional development and success in engineering. A rigorously designed mixed methods study will generate knowledge on how students identify and activate their assets to succeed in engineering programs and ways in which asset-based practices influence outcomes and identities of engineering students attending at rural versus urban campuses. This project is thus a unique opportunity to increase our knowledge about supporting students in economically distressed communities, expand our understanding of asset-based practices, and develop new insights into implementing such practices at minority-serving institutions, particularly HSIs. Results from this project will be disseminated both regionally through the state-wide HSI consortium and nationally through professional venues dedicated to engineering education. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program under the ETSTE DCL, in partnership with Intel Corporation. The program seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.