Board 389: Student Success in Engineering Through Customized Support  and Internal and External Partnerships

Vellore S. Gopalaratnam; Douglas J Hacker; Sarah Lynn Orton; Rose M Marra

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Tagged Topic: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/46974

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Paper Authors

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Vellore S. Gopalaratnam University of Missouri, Columbia

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Vellore S. Gopalaratnam is Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA. He is a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute (ACI), Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and is a registered Professional Engineer in Missouri. He has also been active in other professional organizations including the American Academy of Mechanics, Society of Experimental Mechanics, and the Materials Research Society. He is a Founding Member of the International Association of Fracture Mechanics for Concrete and Concrete Structures (FraMCoS) and has previously served as the chair of the ACI Fracture Mechanics Committee and Secretary of the ACI Fiber Reinforced Concrete Committee. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan (Sept. 93– Feb. 94), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain (Mar. – Aug. 94), the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, Chennai, India (Jan. – June 2015) and Amrita University, Coimbatore, India (December 2018 - January 2019). He has also been actively working with Amrita University, Coimbatore, India since 2018 as a Fulbright Specialist to assist in developing graduate and faculty programs in infrastructure research. He was awarded the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship in 2020 to collaborate with colleagues at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) to develop solutions for more widespread implementation of precast prestressed concrete in housing and infrastructure applications. He is currently at the IIT-M in this capacity for a second visit of the Fulbright Flex Option project. He is the Coordinator of the Minor in Engineering Sustainability at Mizzou and serves as the Director of the Mizzou Engineering STEM Scholars’ Program, a project funded by the US National Science Foundation. His research interests include sustainable materials and infrastructure, prestressed concrete, high performance and fiber reinforced cement composites, polymer concretes, experimental mechanics and stress analysis of bridges and other structures, and field instrumentation and monitoring of structures. He has published extensively in international journals and made numerous invited presentations at international meetings on these topics.

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Douglas J Hacker

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Dr. Hacker is Professor Emeritus from the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah and participated in both the Learning Sciences Program and the Reading and Literacy Program.

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Sarah Lynn Orton P.E. University of Missouri, Columbia orcid.org/0000-0002-7896-039X

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Dr. Orton is an associate professor in Civil Engineering and is an active member of the American Concrete Institute and the American Society of Civil Engineers. Dr. Orton also serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Civil and Environmental

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Rose M Marra University of Missouri, Columbia orcid.org/0000-0003-4002-4376

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Professor Rose M. Marra is the Director of the School of Information Science and Learning Technology at the University of Missouri. She is PI of the NSF-funded Supporting Collaboration in Engineering Education, and has studied and published on engineerin

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Abstract

The single institution Track 2 NSF S-STEM (Scholarships in STEM) project titled “Increasing Retention and Success of Students from Low-Income Backgrounds in Civil Engineering” provides a total of 32 two-year undergraduate scholarships, spread over 4 years. The focus during the Scholar’s freshmen and sophomore years is on building a strong foundation in the Gateway 8 courses. These eight basic science, math and introductory engineering courses are often the primary reason for attrition from engineering programs and pose significant hurdles to students from low-income backgrounds. Emphasis during the Scholar’s junior and senior years is on personal/professional development, preparation for graduate studies and workforce training. The core project team has developed a four-year support plan that includes: (i) financial support during freshman and sophomore years, (ii) academic support in the Gateway 8 courses via customized tuition support recommendations, (iii) monthly one-on-one progress check-up meetings with PI, and early alert using the learning management platform MU Connect, (iv) STEM Cohort networking with regular community-engagement service projects, field trips, and professional/personal development seminars, (v) workforce training with external partners for internship opportunities and college faculty for hands-on graduate research training, (vi) feedback from regular internal and external program evaluations for knowledge generation and finetuning program support features, and (vii) team-building events involving all STEM Scholars, internal and external partner panels for the project, and the core STEM Team, including the annual Meet and Greet event every Fall with the entry of a new cohort, and the annual banquet to recognize Scholar accomplishments in late Spring. We use a multi-pronged approach to evaluate program effectiveness. Each Scholar is followed individually and longitudinally throughout the first two years. The Sense of Community-2 survey and an Engineering Self-Efficacy survey is administered at the beginning and end of the two years and again at a point mid-way through. The Sense of Community-2 measures a student’s feelings of belonging to a community and commitment to one another, and feelings that each member’s needs will be met by the community. The Engineering Self-Efficacy survey measures students’ judgments concerning their academic performance in engineering courses and an engineering program, their expectations about an engineering career, and their persistence in pursuing an engineering education. In addition, at the end of each academic year, students participate in a focus group to discuss their personal experiences in the program and offer suggestions for change. Grade point averages from each semester are recorded and correlated with self-efficacy measures. The project team also partners with the Research on Organizational Partnerships in Education and STEM (ROPES) Hub, an NSF-funded effort at the Virginia Tech whose emphasis is on understanding intra- and inter-institutional partnerships and their effectiveness in student success among low-income engineering students. With experience with three cohorts of STEM Scholars, partnership in the NSF STEM research hub, the core project team has developed data to-date that demonstrate excellent retention record and anticipated success in graduating and retaining Scholars in STEM fields.

Citation
Format

Gopalaratnam, V. S., & Hacker, D. J., & Orton, S. L., & Marra, R. M. (2024, June), Board 389: Student Success in Engineering Through Customized Support and Internal and External Partnerships Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/46974

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The single institution Track 2 NSF S-STEM (Scholarships in STEM) project titled “Increasing Retention and Success of Students from Low-Income Backgrounds in Civil Engineering” provides a total of 32 two-year undergraduate scholarships, spread over 4 years. The focus during the Scholar’s freshmen and sophomore years is on building a strong foundation in the Gateway 8 courses. These eight basic science, math and introductory engineering courses are often the primary reason for attrition from engineering programs and pose significant hurdles to students from low-income backgrounds. Emphasis during the Scholar’s junior and senior years is on personal/professional development, preparation for graduate studies and workforce training. The core project team has developed a four-year support plan that includes: (i) financial support during freshman and sophomore years, (ii) academic support in the Gateway 8 courses via customized tuition support recommendations, (iii) monthly one-on-one progress check-up meetings with PI, and early alert using the learning management platform MU Connect, (iv) STEM Cohort networking with regular community-engagement service projects, field trips, and professional/personal development seminars, (v) workforce training with external partners for internship opportunities and college faculty for hands-on graduate research training, (vi) feedback from regular internal and external program evaluations for knowledge generation and finetuning program support features, and (vii) team-building events involving all STEM Scholars, internal and external partner panels for the project, and the core STEM Team, including the annual Meet and Greet event every Fall with the entry of a new cohort, and the annual banquet to recognize Scholar accomplishments in late Spring.
We use a multi-pronged approach to evaluate program effectiveness.  Each Scholar is followed individually and longitudinally throughout the first two years.  The Sense of Community-2 survey and an Engineering Self-Efficacy survey is administered at the beginning and end of the two years and again at a point mid-way through.  The Sense of Community-2 measures a student’s feelings of belonging to a community and commitment to one another, and feelings that each member’s needs will be met by the community.  The Engineering Self-Efficacy survey measures students’ judgments concerning their academic performance in engineering courses and an engineering program, their expectations about an engineering career, and their persistence in pursuing an engineering education.  In addition, at the end of each academic year, students participate in a focus group to discuss their personal experiences in the program and offer suggestions for change.  Grade point averages from each semester are recorded and correlated with self-efficacy measures.
The project team also partners with the Research on Organizational Partnerships in Education and STEM (ROPES) Hub, an NSF-funded effort at the Virginia Tech whose emphasis is on understanding intra- and inter-institutional partnerships and their effectiveness in student success among low-income engineering students. 
With experience with three cohorts of STEM Scholars, partnership in the NSF STEM research hub, the core project team has developed data to-date that demonstrate excellent retention record and anticipated success in graduating and retaining Scholars in STEM fields.

AU  - Vellore S. Gopalaratnam
AU  - Douglas J Hacker
AU  - Sarah Lynn Orton P.E.
AU  - Rose M Marra
CY  - Portland, Oregon
DA  - 2024/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Board 389: Student Success in Engineering Through Customized Support  and Internal and External Partnerships
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/46974
ER  -