PEEPS - Program for Engineering Excellence for Partner Schools

这个项目提出了一个制度性的方法来招募、保留和毕业来自弱势背景的工程专业学生。目标学生来自有很大比例的学生有资格参加国家学校午餐计划的高中。数据显示，这些学生不仅更有可能社会经济地位较低，而且还是第一代大学生和/或代表性不足的少数民族（URM）。为经济困难的工程专业学生提供为期四年的最高10,000美元的奖学金。第一批预计将包括六名机械工程专业的学生，第二批将从第二年开始由六名工程学院的学生组成。该项目的长期效益是提高加州州立理工大学有效和高效地改善弱势学生教育机会的能力。该项目的技术优点在于研究表明，弱势学生缺乏相对成功的原因包括孤立感、缺乏自我效能感、经济压力和缺乏适当的学术支持。该项目满足了这些确定的需求，项目的评估和评估衡量了综合支持机制对学生学业成功的影响。项目实施的具体特点包括形成学生学习社区的群组，以相互支持，创造归属感并建立社区。这群人还一起参加一些工程支持课程，并自动参加科学和数学以及工程成功课程的补充讲习班。该项目消除了障碍，并整合了几种行之有效的学生成功策略，以帮助学生发展他们的个人学术和职业目标。因此，项目组成部分不仅包括财政支持，还包括门户工程支持课程的日程安排，包括补充研讨会、频繁的建议、个人学术和职业目标的个性化指导和指导、职业发展机会和STEM外展活动。建议的活动有助于加强学生作为工程师的身份认同，提高自我效能。项目的评估和评价有助于了解工程学生如何取得成功，以及如何将学习社区模式扩展到更多的学生。

This project presents an institutional approach towards recruiting, retaining, and graduating engineering students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Targeted students come from high schools that have large percentages of students who qualify for the National School Lunch Program. Data suggests that these students are not only more likely to have low socioeconomic status, but also be first generation college students and/or underrepresented minorities (URM). Scholarships of up to $10,000 for four years are extended to engineering students with high financial need. The first cohort is expected to include six Mechanical Engineering (ME) students and the second cohort is a mix of six College of Engineering students starting the second year. A long-term benefit of the project is that is increasing the ability of the California Polytechnic State University to improve educational opportunities for disadvantaged students effectively and efficiently. The technical merit of the project rests on research that has suggested that reasons for the lack of comparative success of disadvantaged students include feelings of isolation, lack of self-efficacy, financial pressures, and the lack of appropriate academic support. The project meets those identified needs, and the evaluation and assessment of the program measures the impact of the combined support mechanisms on the students' academic success. Specific features of the project's implementation include the formation of cohorts of student learning communities to support one another and create a sense of belonging and to build community. The cohorts also take several engineering support courses together, and are automatically enrolled in supplemental workshops in Science and Mathematics and the Engineering Success courses. The project removes obstacles and integrates several proven student success strategies to help students develop their personal academic and professional goals. Thus, project components not only include financial support, but also block scheduling of gateway engineering support courses with supplemental workshops, frequent advising, individualized coaching and mentoring of personal academic and professional goals, professional development opportunities, and STEM outreach activities. The proposed activities help strengthen student identities as an engineer increase self-efficacy. Assessment and evaluation of the project contributes to the knowledge of how engineering students succeed, and how the learning community model may be expanded to more students.