Rewarding Achievement and Promoting Success: Strategic Support to Foster Tomorrow's Diverse Engineers

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The Rewarding Achievement and Promoting Success (RAPS) program at Southern Methodist University (SMU) supports 28 freshmen and sophomore students across the School of Engineering (SoE). The project aims to:1) increase the diversity (ethnicity, gender, background) of the freshman class,2) increase retention rates of first- and second-year students,3) equip students with soft skills,4) increase employment opportunities, and5) strengthen the university-community relations.The RAPS Program includes an outreach components that impact community agencies and high school education.The RAPS Program will record quantitative data that is tied to the objectives of the program and conduct evaluations of student support activities. The results of the program will be disseminated internally throughout the university and has the potential to serve as a model program for the first-year experience of all students. Additionally, the RAPS Program will impact the SoE projected student growth and the Gender Parity Initiative.The Institute for Engineering Education and the Texas Engineering Education Pipeline will be instrumental in external dissemination.