ESTEEM: Enhancing Success in Transfer Education for Engineering Majors

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The Enhancing Success in Transfer Education for Engineering Majors (ESTEEM) project will support and enhance degree completion by academically-talented, low-income students in Engineering at four California Community Colleges and a major public research university, all of which are Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Promising students enrolled at Alan Hancock College, Oxnard College, Santa Barbara City College, Ventura College and the University of California, Santa Barbara, will participate in an integrated program of academic tutoring, career advising, professional network-building, and scholarships designed to provide sustained support for transfer students before, during, and after the transition from community college to a four-year university. ESTEEM research will explore the major barriers to successful transfer, and the effectiveness of strategies targeted at helping aspiring Engineering students to overcome them. Faculty from each of the five institutions will engage in significant collaboration to ensure that appropriate courses are shared between sites, and to strengthen student transfer applications. ESTEEM will serve as an important new model for expanding access to and increasing diversity in California's higher education system.The goals of the ESTEEM project are to enhance the competitiveness of California Community College students in their transfer applications to four-year Engineering B.S. programs, to improve transfer students' preparation to undertake advanced engineering coursework, and to accelerate the adjustment of transfer students to a University academic environment. The scope of the project includes coordination of transfer pathways through inter-institutional collaboration, informed by an education research study of curricular and co-curricular interventions that promote transfer success via an overlapping cohort-sequential design. In collaboration with community college faculty, Engineering faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara will pilot the offering of gateway courses to community college students. ESTEEM Scholars at the community colleges will develop personalized education plans with faculty mentors to plan their transfer to a 4-year Engineering B.S. program. ESTEEM Scholars who transfer to the College of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will receive continued scholarship support and faculty mentoring to ensure their successful graduation. An educational impact study using an overlapping cohort-sequential design will examine the impact of each type of enhanced curricular and co-curricular undergraduate experience on transfer completion and post-transfer adjustment, perceived likelihood of success, and articulation of goals.