RedShirt Transitional Program: Creating Engineering Capacity and Expanding Diversity through Strategic Partnerships

这个项目被称为“红衫计划”，将直接录取那些表现出成为成功工程师潜力、但未达到工程专业标准的弱势、准备不足的高中毕业生。在红衫军学习期间，这些学生将作为真正的工程专业学生受到欢迎和支持；这是一个可以在五年内完成学士学位的课程的开始。为期两周的夏季桥梁项目将侧重于建立社区和发展领导技能。在第一学年，学生将以小组为基础的小班学习，在红衫军学年达到预定指标的学生将继续在学院学习，遵循标准课程，丰富各种支持性机会和活动。课程以学习科学为基础，红衫军试点项目的每一个组成部分都将被研究和衡量。该项目将揭示成就差距和多样性障碍根源的关键概念问题，以确定适当的研究策略，这些策略有可能使大多数工程学院的多样性增加一倍。工程学院？美国现有的与两所高中的合作关系，以及为即将升入高中的高年级学生举办的暑期多元化研讨会，为招聘提供了途径。增加工程项目中代表性不足的群体的参与对于满足对多样化工程劳动力的经济需求至关重要。该项目将利用大学与高中的合作关系，惠及第一代大学生、经济背景不利的学生、未被充分代表的少数民族、妇女和农村学生。需要大胆的、可复制的策略来增加高潜力、代表性不足的学生的准备，这样工程学院才能更广泛地为职业和国家服务。红衫军的课程和规划策略，一旦试点和完善，可以输出到几乎所有的美国工程学院，增加了在工程领域增加多样性的棘手障碍可以被克服的潜力，并提供了一个战略，为这个行业提供来自各行各业的学生的丰富潜力。

This project, called the RedShirt Program, will directly admit disadvantaged, under-prepared high school graduates who demonstrate potential to be successful engineers, but fall short of meeting standard admissions criteria to engineering. The students will be welcomed and supported as real engineering students during their RedShirt year; which is the beginning of a program that can lead to completion of B.S. degrees in five years. A two week Summer Bridge program will focus on building community and developing leadership skills. During the first academic year, students will learn in small, cohort-based classes, and students who achieve pre-defined metrics in their RedShirt year continue in the college, following the standard curriculum enriched by a variety of supportive opportunities and activities. The curricula are informed by the science of learning, and every component of the pilot RedShirt project will be researched and measured. This project will unearth the key conceptual issues at the root of achievement gap and diversity barriers to determine appropriate research strategies which have the potential to double the diversity of most engineering colleges. The College of Engineering?s existing partnerships with two high schools and its summer diversity-centered workshops for rising high school seniors provide avenues for recruitment. Increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering programs is vital to meeting the economic demands for a diverse engineering workforce. This program will leverage university/high school partnerships for the benefit of first-generation college-bound students, students from disadvantaged economic backgrounds, underrepresented minorities, women and rural students. Bold, replicable strategies are needed to augment the preparation of high-potential, underrepresented students so engineering colleges can serve the profession and nation more broadly. The RedShirt curriculum and programming strategies, once piloted and refined, are exportable to virtually any U.S. engineering college, increasing the potential that the intractable barriers for increasing diversity within engineering can be overcome, and providing a strategy for supplying the profession with a rich potential of students from all walks of life.