ENGAGE: Co-curricular Engagement for Transfer Students
- Conference
- Location
-
Virtual Conference
- Publication Date
-
July 26, 2021
- Start Date
-
July 26, 2021
- End Date
-
July 19, 2022
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
-
Two-Year College
- Tagged Topic
-
Diversity
- Page Count
-
18
- DOI
-
10.18260/1-2--37033
- Permanent URL
-
https://strategy.asee.org/37033
- Download Count
-
364
Paper Authors
Montana Epps California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Montana is a graduate student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, currently earning her M.S. in Higher Education Counseling and Student Affairs. She is originally from San Diego, CA and earned her B.A. in History at UCLA. In addition to being a graduate student, Montana is the Graduate Assistant at the Cal Poly Transfer Center, and works closely with New Student and Transition Programs, specializing in the Transfer Orientation Experience. She is passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion, which has led her to pursue research opportunities surrounding these topics. As a former foster youth, low-income and first-generation college student herself, Montana understands the difficulty students often face when trying to acclimate to their campus environment. Inspired by her own experiences, she strives to create a stronger sense of belonging for underrepresented minority students on college campuses. Her top five Clifton Strengths are: Futuristic, Discipline, Focus, Restorative, Achiever.
Jamie Bettencourt Cuesta Community College
Jamie Bettencourt is a Master's Degree candidate at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in the Higher Education Counseling and Student Affairs program. Jamie earned his Bachelor's degree in Language Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He also holds a California Education Specialist Instruction Credential and a M.Ed. from Grand Canyon University. Currently, Jamie is an Academic Success Coach at Cuesta Community College, working with a broad intersection of students as part of a college-wide effort to support and bolster student success.
Daniel Almeida
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
orcid.org/0000-0003-4679-7185
Dr. Daniel Almeida is an Associate Professor in Higher Education Counseling/Student Affairs at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He is Lead Principal Investigator for the NSF-funded California State University Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) Alliance for Diversity and Strengths of STEM Faculty: A Culturally-Informed Strengths-Based Approach to Advance Early-Career Faculty Success. Dr. Almeida is also Co-Principal Investigator for the NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (S-STEM) grant, Engineering Neighbors: Gaining Access Growing Engineers (ENGAGE). Dr. Almeida’s graduate training is in Urban Education Policy – Higher Education from the University of Southern California.
John Y. Oliver
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
orcid.org/0000-0003-2877-6751
Dr. Oliver is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. His field of expertise is in computer architecture and system performance analysis, dabbler in cybersecurity and passionate about broadening pathways for students in engineering.
Lizabeth L Thompson California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Dr. Lizabeth Thompson is a professor in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. She has been at Cal Poly for nearly 30 years and has held various positions on campus including Co-Director of LAES, Director of Women’s Engineering Programs, and CENG Associate Dean. Her research is in Engineering Education, particularly equitable classroom practices, integrated learning, and institutional change. She spent last academic year at Cal State LA where she taught and collaborated on research related to equity and social justice. With her colleagues at Cal State LA she recently received an NSF grant called Eco-STEM which aims to transform STEM education using an asset-based ecosystem model. Specifically, the Eco-STEM project focuses on shifting the metaphor in STEM education from a factory model to an ecosystem model. This Ecosystem model aspires towards an organic and healthy environment that nurtures students, faculty, and staff to become individuals fulfilled professionally and personally. She is also a co-advisor to Engineers without Borders and Critical Global Engagement at Cal Poly.
Chance Hoellwarth California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo
Chance Hoellwarth is the Director for Cal Poly's Center for Engineering, Science, and Mathematics Education and a member of the Physics Department.
Jane L. Lehr California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Jane Lehr is a Professor in Ethnic Studies and Women's and Gender Studies and Director of the Office of Student Research at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She is affiliated faculty in Computer Science & Software Engineering and Science, Technology, and Society. She is also the Faculty Director of the California State University (CSU) Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) in STEM Program at Cal Poly. She previously served as elected co-chair of the Science & Technology Taskforce of the National Women's Studies Association, and as a Postdoctoral Research Officer at the Centre for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) at King's College, University of London. Most recently, she served as the 2019-20 Inclusive STEM Initiatives Fellow in the Colleges of Engineering, Science & Mathematics, and Liberal Arts at Cal Poly. Her graduate training is in Science and Technology Studies and Women's Studies at Virginia Tech.
Abstract
Students from two-year community colleges face many barriers when transferring to four-year universities. One barrier in particular for transfer students is their integration into campus in curricular and co-curricular activities. Universities spend a lot of effort easing this transition for first-time freshman, but typically much less for two-year community college transfer students. This discrepancy is worrisome as it is widely believed that extra-curricular activities help increase students’ sense of belonging and that co-curricular activities develop students’ identity as an engineer.
This paper is a work-in-progress that describes research on transfer student’s participation in extra and co-curricular activities. In this paper, we describe our current and future plans for study with hopes of soliciting feedback from the engineering education community. This research is part of an NSF funded transfer-student success program that provides scholarships and strength-based training and mentoring to transfer students over two years at a community college and two years at a four-year engineering university.
Our initial research found that transfer students at this four-year engineering university are less likely to participate in co-curricular activities and if they do participate, they spend less time on co-curricular activities. This highlights the importance of understanding why transfer students do and don’t participate in extra- and co-curricular activities so we can minimize institutional barriers and maximize student participation in these activities. Our plan is to quantify how and how much transfer students participate in extra- and co-curricular activities, describe the impact participation has on their sense of belonging and the development of their engineering identity, and to identify any institutional barriers and institutional supports that can support student involvement in co-curricular activities.
Epps, M., & Bettencourt, J., & Almeida, D., & Oliver, J. Y., & Thompson , L. L., & Hoellwarth, C., & Lehr, J. L. (2021, July), ENGAGE: Co-curricular Engagement for Transfer Students Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37033
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: © 2021 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