Growing the Community College Pipeline for Careers in Civil, Chemical, and Ocean Engineering through the FITS-STEM Program

佛罗里达理工学院(FIT)正在通过这个S-STEM项目支持26名有经济需要的有学术天赋的转学学生，他们主修化学、土木和海洋工程。来自社区大学和不提供工程学位的四年制州立大学的三批转学学生通过奖学金、早期指导和其他学术和职业支持活动得到支持。FIT正在利用与五所学院(东佛罗里达州立学院-前布里瓦德社区学院、印第安河州立学院、代托纳州立学院、希尔斯堡社区学院和迈阿密戴德学院)的合作伙伴关系，为学生提供转学到FIT和攻读工程学位的机会，以满足佛罗里达州的劳动力需求。该项目的成果包括增加来自低收入群体的转学学生进入STEM领域的人数，改善代表不足的少数族裔学生获得STEM学位的机会，帮助合作学校在STEM领域招收更多学生，以及传播项目的经验教训和评估结果。FIT正在实施一套全面的循证做法，以支持其转学学生的成功转学、留校和毕业。该项目包括伙伴大学的重点招聘计划。学生在社区和州立大学期间提供的早期指导和过渡支持旨在顺利过渡过程。FIT与合作伙伴社区学院和四年制院校之间建立的衔接协议也得到了利用。在FIT注册期间，学生将参加多项队伍建设和专业发展活动，包括与学生工程专业组织的实践活动、与可持续发展相关的设计和研究研讨会，还有机会参与地区和国家学生竞赛，并使用增强的学术支持中心提供的服务。此外，职业咨询活动有助于学生过渡到工程工作队伍。该项目包括一项评估计划，通过混合方法(如调查和访谈)进行形成性和终结性评估，以确定FITS-STEM奖学金计划的改进，以及跟踪在满足项目结果方面的成功情况。

The Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) is supporting 26 academically talented transfer students with financial need who are majoring in chemical, civil, and ocean engineering through this S-STEM project. Three cohorts of transfer students from community colleges and four-year state colleges that do not offer engineering degrees are supported through scholarships, early mentoring, and other academic and career support activities. FIT is leveraging partnerships with five colleges (Eastern Florida State College - formerly Brevard Community College, Indian River State College, Daytona State College, Hillsborough Community College, and Miami Dade College) to provide students opportunities to transfer to FIT and pursue engineering degrees to address workforce needs in the state of Florida. The project outcomes include increasing the number of transfer students from low income groups to enter STEM fields, improving opportunities for underrepresented minority students to obtain STEM degrees, helping partner schools recruit more students in STEM fields, and disseminating the lessons learned and evaluation results of the project. FIT is implementing a comprehensive set of evidence-based practices to support the successful transfer, retention, and graduation of its transfer students. The project includes a focused recruitment plan at the partner colleges. The early mentoring and transition support provided while students are at the community and state colleges aims to smooth the transition process. Established articulation agreements between FIT and the partner community colleges and four-year institutions are leveraged as well. While enrolled at FIT, students participate in multiple cohort building and professional development activities, including hands-on activities with student engineering professional organizations, sustainability-related design and research seminars, and also have opportunities to engage in regional and national student competitions and use services provided by the Enhanced Academic Support Center. In addition, career advising activities assist the students' transition into the engineering workforce. The project includes an evaluation plan with both formative and summative evaluation via mixed methods (such as surveys and interviews) to identify improvements to the FITS-STEM scholarship program, as well as multiple metrics to track success in meeting project outcomes.