Collaborative Research: Motivated Engineering Transfers-STEM Talent Expansion Program (METSTEP)

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The project is a collaborative effort between a four-year school (Arizona State University) and five non-metropolitan feeder schools (Arizona Western College, Central Arizona College, Cochise College, Eastern Arizona College, and Mohave Community College). The team is working to significantly increase the number of transfer students, especially women and underrepresented minority students, that graduate in engineering and computer science. In order to accomplish this, they are: 1) providing scholarships to students in the feeder schools and to transfer students at Arizona State University , 2) supporting student outreach activities at the feeder schools, 3) supporting engineering courses at the feeder schools by providing materials, tutoring, local engineering speakers, and tuition scholarships, 4) conducting "Be an Engineer" events at the feeder schools for both students and their parents, 5) providing classes, workshops, and seminars using live broadcast and videotape, 6) providing an engaged community of mentors with extensive experience and commitment for all students, 7) hosting an orientation at Arizona State University for engineering transfer students, 8) managing a center where engineering transfer students can study together and get the support needed to survive, and 9) working with transfer students through a time-tested "career shaping" academic scholarship workshop program. The project is building on an earlier successful program between Arizona State University and a set of metropolitan community colleges with similar goals. Evaluation efforts, involving formative and summative aspects, are being conducted by internal and external evaluators who are developing and monitoring indices for enrollment, persistence, and graduation. Broader impacts include the development and dissemination of models for collaboration between community colleges and four-year schools and the efforts to increase the number of women and minorities in engineering.