Increasing Retention and Graduation of Students in Civil Engineering

提高土木工程专业学生的保留率和毕业率

• 批准号: 1930221
• 负责人: Vellore Gopalaratnam
• 金额: $ 95.95万
• 依托单位: University of Missouri-Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2025-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1930221&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Increasing; Retention; Graduation; Students; Civil

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated engineers by supporting the recruitment, retention, and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need. Over its five-year duration, the project will provide two-year scholarships to 24 undergraduate and 8 graduate (Masters) students at the University of Missouri. Scholars will pursue Bachelor or Master of Science degrees in Civil Engineering. During their first and second years, undergraduate Scholars will receive comprehensive support in a set of eight required foundational courses, including calculus, basic sciences, and engineering analysis. The Missouri Department of Transportation, HDR Engineering, Inc., and Kiewit Construction will provide Scholars with internship, co-op, and job-shadowing opportunities to expand students' workforce training and experience. Scholars will receive additional institutional support during their junior and senior years. Optional research with faculty mentors will create opportunities for scholars to transition to University of Missouri graduate programs in civil engineering. Graduate Scholars will work with faculty advisors on research projects that study smart and sustainable infrastructure systems. As a component of its broader impact, this project will build a lasting institutional infrastructure and networks that will continue to generate new knowledge about how to support the success, retention, transfer, graduation, and entry of students into the STEM workforce or graduate study. The intellectual merit of this project includes its development of a comprehensive approach for early, active support of undergraduates in foundational engineering courses. This approach is expected to result in increased persistence and timely graduation of students with degrees in civil engineering, thus preparing students to excel in the STEM workforce or graduate studies. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need to obtain degrees in civil engineering and enter the workforce or graduate programs in STEM fields. The recruitment effort will emphasize first-time-college students, underrepresented minorities, females, and transfer students, thus providing a diverse cohort with the opportunity to enter and successfully graduate with an ABET-accredited civil engineering degree. Specific objectives include: (i) providing undergraduates with early intervention and comprehensive support in foundational courses; (ii) generating knowledge to advance the understanding of how factors and evidence-based curricular and co-curricular activities affect student success, retention, transfer, academic/career pathways, and graduation in STEM; (iii) mentoring undergraduate scholars to matriculate into the University’s graduate civil engineering program; and, (iv) sustaining all of the objectives beyond the award period by building institutional capacity for support of academically high-performing students from low-income backgrounds. The project intends to implement a synergistic strategy for student success that builds on existing institutional resources and develops new project-specific support mechanisms, including early assessment and timely intervention. Knowledge generation efforts will advance understanding of self-efficacy, cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of student experiences and success measures, and "sense of community" indicators. The project will include an investigation of how these evidence-based practices and synergistic strategies affect student outcomes. Both internal and external evaluations include formative and summative assessments to enable ongoing project improvement and to determine the effectiveness of the approaches used. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need to earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.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.

该项目将通过支持高成就，低收入学生的招聘，保留和毕业，为国家对受过良好教育的工程师的需求做出贡献。 该项目为期五年，将为密苏里州大学的24名本科生和8名研究生（硕士）提供两年奖学金。 学者将攻读土木工程学士或硕士学位。在他们的第一年和第二年，本科学者将获得一套八个必需的基础课程，包括微积分，基础科学和工程分析的全面支持。 密苏里州交通部，HDR工程公司，Kiewit Construction将为学者提供实习，合作和工作影子机会，以扩大学生的劳动力培训和经验。学者将在大三和大四期间获得额外的机构支持。与教师导师的可选研究将为学者创造机会，过渡到密苏里州大学的土木工程研究生课程。研究生学者将与研究智能和可持续基础设施系统的研究项目的教师顾问合作。作为其更广泛影响的一个组成部分，该项目将建立一个持久的机构基础设施和网络，将继续产生有关如何支持学生成功，保留，转移，毕业和进入STEM劳动力或研究生学习的新知识。这个项目的智力价值包括它的发展，早期，积极支持本科生在基础工程课程的综合方法。 这种方法预计将导致增加持久性和及时毕业的学生在土木工程学位，从而准备学生在干劳动力或研究生学习中脱颖而出。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入，高成就的本科生的STEM学位完成率，这些本科生具有获得土木工程学位的经济需求，并进入STEM领域的劳动力或研究生课程。招聘工作将强调第一次大学生，代表性不足的少数民族，女性和转学生，从而提供了一个多元化的群体有机会进入并成功毕业与ABET认证的土木工程学位。具体目标包括：（i）为本科生提供基础课程的早期干预和全面支持;（ii）生成知识，以促进对因素和循证课程和课外活动如何影响学生成功，保留，转移，学术/职业途径和STEM毕业的理解;（iii）指导本科学者进入大学的研究生土木工程课程;以及（iv）通过建设机构能力，支持来自低收入家庭的学业成绩优异的学生，在奖学金发放期之后继续实现所有目标。 该项目打算实施一项促进学生成功的协同战略，以现有的机构资源为基础，并制定新的针对具体项目的支助机制，包括早期评估和及时干预。知识生成工作将促进对自我效能、学生经历的认知和非认知方面以及成功衡量标准和“社区感”指标的理解。该项目将包括调查这些循证实践和协同策略如何影响学生的成绩。内部和外部评价都包括形成性和总结性评估，以使项目不断得到改进，并确定所用方法的有效性。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，这些学生证明需要获得STEM领域的学位。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并产生关于低收入学生的学术成功，保留，转移，毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。