Academic Intervention, Social Supports, and Scholarships for Engineering Transfer Students

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With funding from the NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program, the Academic Intervention, Social Supports, and Scholarships for Engineering Transfer Students project will support high-achieving, low-income students with proved financial need at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga (UTC). Over the course of this five-year project, twenty-eight students will receive two-year scholarships and eight students will receive three-year scholarships. This project aims to discuss the growing need for chemical, civil, electrical, and mechanical engineers. In Tennessee and elsewhere, engineering transfer students often arrive at four-year institutions with many community college credits, but without the prerequisites needed to take junior-level or major-specific courses. As a result, transfer students may need four more years in college to complete the classes needed for graduation, decreasing the likelihood that they will complete an engineering degree. The aim of this project is to ensure that transfer students complete their UTC studies within two years after transferring from a community college. The plan incorporates mentorship, summer coursework, and summer boot camps to ensure a successful transition. A Transfer Learning Community will provide students with a peer support system and help them adjust to university life and overcome academic challenges. A local advisory board for regional schools will help to coordinate curricula among the schools. The project's emphasis on faculty mentoring will help the project have a lasting impact on UTC practices. The project also has the potential for positive impact on the local community through strengthened industry ties and employment opportunities. This project is significant in its potential to find and give best practices to guide four-year institutions across the nation to support the success of transfer students. The project will use a mixed methods study to compare quantitative and qualitative data gathered for scholars versus non-scholar transfer students, non-transfer students, and matched non-scholar transfer students. The study will investigate five research questions: (1) Does taking part in the Summer Boot Camp improve transfer students' academic performance and likelihood of matriculation? (2) Does regular participation in peer tutoring increase transfer students' academic performance and likelihood of matriculation? (3) Which activities most reduce "transfer shock" among scholars? (4) Which activities most improve career placement following graduation? (5) How does the academic preparation affect a student's likelihood of retention and on-time graduation? Information from this research study may increase understanding of interventions, such as learning communities, in improving the academic performance, retention rates and time to graduation for scholars compared to non-scholars. Through the Community College Advisory Board and the research study, this project aims to lay a foundation for a regional alliance that can promote curricular alignment between UTC and area community colleges, supporting a seamless engineering transfer pathway that may be replicable across the state and nation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.