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Board 89: Military Veteran Students’ Pathways in Engineering Education (Year 4)

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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 Topics

Diversity and NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

11

DOI

10.18260/1-2--30130

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/30130

Download Count

456

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Paper Authors

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Susan M. Lord University of San Diego

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Susan M. Lord received a BS from Cornell University and the MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Chair of Engineering at the University of San Diego. Her teaching and research interests include electronics, optoelectronics, materials science, first year engineering courses, feminist and liberative pedagogies, engineering student persistence, and student autonomy. Her research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Lord is a fellow of the ASEE and IEEE and is active in the engineering education community including serving as General Co-Chair of the 2006 Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference, on the FIE Steering Committee, and as President of the IEEE Education Society for 2009-2010. She is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Education and the Journal of Engineering Education. She and her coauthors were awarded the 2011 Wickenden Award for the best paper in the Journal of Engineering Education and the 2011 and 2015 Best Paper Award for the IEEE Transactions on Education. In 2012, Dr. Lord spent a sabbatical at Southeast University in Nanjing, China.

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Catherine Mobley Clemson University

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Catherine Mobley, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology at Clemson University. She has over 30 years experience in project and program evaluation and has worked for a variety of consulting firms, non-profit agencies, and government organizations, including the Rand Corporation, the American Association of Retired Persons, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Since 2004, she been a member of the NSF-funded MIDFIELD research project on engineering education; she has served as a Co-PI on three research projects, including one on transfer students and another on student veterans in engineering.

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Catherine E. Brawner Research Triangle Educational Consultants

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Catherine E. Brawner is President of Research Triangle Educational Consultants. She received her Ph.D.in Educational Research and Policy Analysis from NC State University in 1996. She also has an MBA from Indiana University (Bloomington) and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University. She specializes in
evaluation and research in engineering education, computer science education, teacher education, and technology education. Dr. Brawner is a founding member and former treasurer of Research Triangle Park Evaluators, an American Evaluation Association affiliate organization and is a member of the American Educational Research Association and American Evaluation Association, in addition to ASEE. Dr. Brawner is also an Extension Services Consultant for the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT) and, in that role, advises computer science and engineering departments on diversifying their undergraduate student population. She remains an active researcher, including studying academic policies, gender and ethnicity issues, transfers, and matriculation models with MIDFIELD as well as student veterans in engineering. Her evaluation work includes evaluating teamwork models, statewide pre-college math initiatives, teacher and faculty professional development programs, and S-STEM programs.

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Joyce B. Main Purdue University, West Lafayette (College of Engineering) Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-3984-533X

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Joyce B. Main is Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She holds a Ph.D. in Learning, Teaching, and Social Policy from Cornell University, and an Ed.M. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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Michelle M. Camacho University of San Diego

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Michelle Madsen Camacho is Professor in the Department of Sociology & Faculty Administrator at the University of San Diego and is a former Fellow of the American Council on Education. Her research focuses on inequities in STEM education using quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and theories from interdisciplinary sources including cultural studies, critical race, gender and feminist theories. Her book, the Borderlands of Education, is co-authored with Susan Lord, Professor of Electrical Engineering. Camacho is affiliated faculty with the Department of Ethnic Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and the School of Peace and Justice.

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Abstract

This NSF Research in Engineering Education (REE)-funded project explores the experiences of student veterans in engineering (SVE) through a comparative case study across four institutions in the USA. Our research plan incorporates interviews with key informants on each campus, focus group interviews with SVEs, and in-depth SVE interviews. The theoretical framework expands Tinto’s student integration model and Schlossberg’s adult transition theory. This study has potential for broad systemic impact by diversifying pathways to and through engineering programs.

During the first three years of the grant, we interviewed 23 key informants including professionals in student veteran success centers, financial aid, advising offices, and other student support services, conducted five focus groups with a total of 21 SVEs, and conducted individual interviews with 60 SVEs. In Year 4, we focused on analyzing the interview and focus group data to provide a richer description of the experiences of military veterans who have chosen to pursue a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Salient themes include leadership skills learned in military as they relate to persistence in engineering education; tensions with transitions to higher education; the intersections of student veteran roles with other facets of their identities such as first-generation status; differentiation by military branch; and preparation for engineering education. We are focusing on disseminating results through journal papers and conference proceedings and presentations.

Lord, S. M., & Mobley, C., & Brawner, C. E., & Main, J. B., & Camacho, M. M. (2018, June), Board 89: Military Veteran Students’ Pathways in Engineering Education (Year 4) Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30130

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