Leadership Development Program in Engineering and Technology

领导力发展项目模仿了一个成功的3年奖学金项目，该项目是由一位校友资助的，旨在帮助有才华的经济条件较差的转学生获得工程和技术学士学位。该项目为学生提供金钱奖励，额外的培训和指导机会，为他们在工程领域的领导角色做好准备。事实证明，该项目取得了巨大的成功，第一批六名学生在转入SIUC后的两年内全部毕业，并获得了快速的职业发展。为了延续这种模式，申请人从伊利诺伊州最南部的11个社区学院区中挑选。共有29名获奖者在大三和大四期间获得了9000美元的奖学金。这些奖学金消除了阻碍第一代大学生实现职业生涯的经济障碍，并改善了这些学生的招聘、留校、毕业率和就业安置。特别是，该项目旨在实现至少90%的三年毕业率（即从社区大学开始四年半后），并通过对培养多样化工程人口感兴趣的企业赞助商实现自我维持。奖学金获得者的支持活动建立在工程学院现有的许多学生支持计划的基础上（即同伴指导，少数民族支持计划和辅导）。该项目的智力价值在于确定是否可以通过提供财政支持和实施学生支持和领导力计划来提高被工程和技术吸引的学生的保留率、毕业率和就业率。该项目的更广泛影响是增加了工程专业毕业生的社会和经济背景的广度，从而增加了进入就业市场的有准备的个人。

The Leadership Development Program is modeled after a successful 3 year scholarship program that was funded by an alum for talented economically-disadvantaged transfer students seeking a Bachelor of Science degrees in engineering and technology. The program provided students with a monetary award, additional training and mentoring opportunities that prepared them for leadership roles in engineering. The program has proven to be a tremendous success with all six students of its first cohort graduating within two years of transferring to SIUC and securing fast-track careers. In continuing this model, applicants are chosen from Illinois' southern-most 11 community college districts. A total of twenty-nine recipients receive $9000 scholarships their junior and senior years. These scholarships remove economic barriers that would prohibit a largely first generation college student demographic from achieving a professional career, and improve the recruitment, retention, graduation rates, and job placement of these students. In particular, the project aims to achieve a three-year graduation rate (i.e., four and one half years after beginning at the community-college level) of at least ninety percent and become self-sustaining through corporate sponsors interested in developing a diverse engineering population. Support activities for scholarship recipients build upon the College of Engineering's many existing student support programs (i.e., peer mentoring, minority support programs, and tutoring). The intellectual merit of this project is the determination as to whether retention, graduation, and job placement rates of students attracted to engineering and technology can be increased by providing financial support and by implementing student support and leadership programs. The broader impact of the project is an increase in the breadth of social and economic backgrounds of students graduating in engineering and, thus, of prepared individuals entering the job market.