Collaborative Research: 2+3 Community College to Graduate Engineering Degree Program: An Innovative Pilot Model for Broadened Pathways Into Engineering Careers

这个工程教育研究奖给诺福克州立大学，与中央弗吉尼亚社区学院，北方弗吉尼亚社区学院，托马斯纳尔逊社区学院和潮汐社区学院合作，将支持研究试点建立一个创新的计划，以利用社区学院的途径进入工程专业。完成2+3社区学院到大学课程的学生将获得三个中学后学位：工程副学士学位，工程科学学士学位和工程科学硕士学位。该试点计划将针对两个主要受众。首先，该计划将量身定制，并销售给退伍军人谁希望完成他们的教育培训使用新实施的后9/11 GI法案计划的支持。其次，该项目将通过一个流行的基于团队的机器人项目向高中生推销，该项目在吸引学生进入工程领域方面有着良好的记录。项目活动分为五大类：课程连贯性;学术充实;指导、咨询和支助服务;社区建设和网络建设;以及评估和评价。规划阶段的活动将探索在先前的研究中确定的策略，对军事学生和社区大学的途径进入工程作为程序设计的指导。该项目小组将考虑如何更好地协调课程和课程设置，并将努力建立制度化的评估机制，用于收集有关学生成绩和成功因素的有用统计数据。最后的项目报告将包括学生和项目表现的概述，并将概述有效传播到其他社区学院和四年制校园的策略。类似于三加二的本科课程，桥梁物理，数学和科学的学生参加文科大学到工程学科，这个程序预计将成为一个模型，吸引更多的学生进入工程专业。它将提供替代途径的模式，可以增加有竞争力的国家劳动力所需的工程毕业生的数量和多样性。

This engineering education research award to Norfolk State University, in partnership with Central Virginia Community College, Northern Virginia Community College, Thomas Nelson Community College, and Tidewater Community College will support research to pilot the establishment of an innovative program to leverage the community college pathway into the engineering profession. Students completing a 2+3 community college to university program would receive three post-secondary degrees: the associate degree in engineering, the bachelor of science in engineering, and the master of science in engineering. This pilot program will target two primary audiences. First, the program will be tailored and marketed to military veterans who wish to complete their educational training using support from the newly implemented Post 9/11 GI-Bill program. Second, the program will be marketed to high school students through a popular team-based robotics program that has a good record of attracting students into engineering. Project activities are organized into five general categories: curricular coherence; academic enrichment; mentoring, advising, and support services; community building and networking; and assessment and evaluation. Planning phase activities will explore strategies that have been identified in prior studies on military students and on community college pathways into engineering as a guide for the program design. The project team will consider methods to better synchronize curricular and course offerings.and will work to develop institutionalized assessment mechanisms that can be used to collect useful statistics on student performance and success factors. The final project report will include an overview of the student and program performance, and it will outline strategies for effective dissemination to other community college and four-year campuses. Analogous to the three plus two undergraduate programs that bridge physics, math, and science students attending liberal arts universities into an engineering discipline, this program is expected to be a model for attracting a larger pool of students into the engineering profession. It will provide models for alternate pathways that can increase the number and diversity of engineering graduates needed for a competitive national workforce.