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Board 36: Increasing Student Enrollment and Achievement in Engineering and Engineering Technology

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Conference

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Salt Lake City, Utah

Publication Date

June 23, 2018

Start Date

June 23, 2018

End Date

July 27, 2018

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--30016

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/30016

Download Count

511

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Paper Authors

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Amir Elzawawy Vaughn College of Aeronautics & Technology Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-5983-7380

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Dr. Amir Elzawawy is an assistant professor at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology. Dr. Elzawawy teaches courses in mechanical and mechatronic engineering and engineering technology programs. His research background is in the area of experimental fluid mechanics and currently active on the area of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and heat transfer simulations. This in addition to developing STEM programs to enhance engineering education experiences focused on improving retention and graduation rate.

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Hossein Rahemi Vaughn College of Aeronautics & Technology

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Dr. Hossein Rahemi is a professor and department chair of Engineering and Technology at Vaughn College of Aeronautics & Technology. He is the author of two books, Vaughn College Journal of Engineering and Technology (VCJET), numerous conference papers in the areas of solid mechanics, computational mechanics, vibration analysis, fracture mechanics and reliability analysis. He is also a principle investigator for the NSF S-STEM grant and the HIS-STEM grant and a student adviser for a number of technical papers in the areas of mechanics, robotics and industrial automation.

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Yougashwar Budhoo

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Shouling He Vaughn College of Aeronautics & Technology

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Dr. Shouling He is an associate professor of Engineering and Technology at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology, where she is teaching the courses in Mechatronics Engineering and Electrical Engineering Technology. Her research interests include modeling and simulation, microprocessors and PLCs, control system designs and Robotics. She has published more than 45 journal and conference papers in these research areas.

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Margaret Ducharme Vaughn College

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Dr. Ducharme is the Chairman of Arts and Sciences at Vaughn College and the Project Director for the Title V SOAR grant supporting outstanding achievement and retention of Hispanic and other high need students. She is the Vaughn Engineering Learning Community Director and the Liaison of AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) at Vaughn College. She obtained her Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto; her dissertation is on Henry James. Dr. Ducharme has presented papers recently at the NEMLA (Northeastern Modern Language Association) and the ALSCW (Association of Literary Scholars Critics and Writers) conferences as well as at the 2017 ASEE meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

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Abstract

This paper details the development and implementation process of NSF STEM Scholarship program at a College in the Northeastern Region of the United States to increase student enrollment and achievement in engineering and engineering technology programs. The development and implementation process of this program is supported by the NSF-STEM fund as part of Division of Undergraduate Education (Award#11540000).

This NSF STEM Scholarship program is a five-year project that started in fall 2012. The Project titled “Increasing Student Enrollment and Achievement in Engineering and Engineering Technology” is focused on increasing enrollment and retention of talented students in STEM undergraduate education. The project included two cohorts; each cohort goes through four-year plan. In the first year, students are engaged in learning communities with well-defined projects in applied engineering such as robot building, truss design, flow imaging and aerodynamics. These hands-on projects are intended for students to make a connection of math and physics courses to engineering applications. In the second year, students (now sophomores) received tutoring training and worked directly with professors on courses where they excelled in their first year and help their fellow freshman. This intended to give students the chance to establish the highly needed linking between courses (statics and mechanics of materials or thermodynamics and fluid mechanics) in their 1st and 2nd year and further to enhance their hands-on, critical thinking, teamwork and communication capabilities. The third and fourth year scholarship recipients were involved in activities that prepared them for the post-graduation (employment and graduate studies). These activities provided students with a unique opportunity to work with faculty members in a group research projects. All program participants have the chance to present their projects in the Vaughn’s Annual Technology Day Conference in April, and many of these projects submitted and accepted for the presentation and publication in regional, national, and international conferences (ASEE, ASME, SEM, and LACEEI). Students in NSF STEM learning communities are encouraged to participate in Vaughn’s engineering seminar series, industry connection seminar series, industry field trips, robotics and UAV club activities and competitions, student chapter of professional societies, publication and presentation in technical conferences. These activities increased the number of students who completed undergraduate research projects under the mentorship of Vaughn faculty and were considered as one of the most effective tool to increase enrollment and retention. It also impacted other students outside the program. Active student clubs generate products that appeal to other students. This currently disseminated successfully at the engineering and technology department. The details and implementation process of STEM program and its assessment process will be presented and discussed during 2018 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings.

Elzawawy , A., & Rahemi, H., & Budhoo, Y., & He, S., & Ducharme, M. (2018, June), Board 36: Increasing Student Enrollment and Achievement in Engineering and Engineering Technology Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30016

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2018 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015