RAPID: The Impact of COVID-19 on Broadening Participation in Engineering at HBCUs

COVID-19引发了一场前所未有的全球危机，扰乱了我们所知道的生活，影响了整体经济，并突然改变了高等教育机构教职员工和学生的传统方法、经验和能力。由于疾病控制中心（CDC）和全国各州政府采取了严格的社会距离措施和庇护令，高校被迫突然过渡到远程教学形式。对于传统黑人学院和大学（HBCUs）来说，捐赠资金的减少以及州和联邦资金来源的历史不平等加剧了COVID-19的负面影响。虽然HBCUs招收了很大比例的第一代和低收入家庭学生，但它们在科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域授予少数族裔学生的学位比例过高。具体来说，在2002年至2012年期间，HBCU的工程专业毕业生占美国黑人和永久居民获得工程学士学位的20.3%，尽管它们只占所有ABET认证项目的0.02%。在hbcu，通过教师和同伴指导，以及无数的补充项目，学生、教师和工作人员报告说，他们的社区意识增强了，这被认为是学生、教师和工作人员高度接触学生的支持和归属感的原因。由于与学生的接触有限，COVID-19给HBCU的学生、教职员工带来了一系列新的挑战，特别是那些主修STEM学术领域或与STEM学术领域密切相关的学生，他们对实验室、硬件（如笔记本电脑）、软件和互联网接入有更高的要求。由于工程专业的学生、教师和工作人员正在同时应对多种挑战，该项目将使这些经验能够立即被捕获，而不会随着时间的推移而丢失。该项目的目标是收集hbcu工程利益相关者与COVID-19及其对hbcu工程教育的影响相关的信息。通过这一过程，将回答以下研究问题：2019冠状病毒病如何影响传统黑人学院和大学的工程专业学生、教职员工的成功和坚持？FIU的一个核心研究团队和一组来自HBCU （HBCU知识合作伙伴）和全国黑人工程师协会（NSBE）的工程和STEM专家将在一个分三个阶段的项目上进行合作：第一阶段：COVID-19对工程利益相关者的影响调查（电子管理），第二阶段：详细分析和讨论结果-利益相关者和机构的影响，第三阶段：HBCU工程项目之间的交叉协作网络的发展。通过从利益相关者那里获取有关这一前所未有的事件对他们的成功和坚持的影响的信息，该研究将通过展示COVID-19对hbcu工程和STEM教育的影响来补充文献。本研究将提供有关在hbcu工程教育中可以培养的支持和伙伴关系类型的见解，以确保在COVID-19后持续成功和可持续发展。通过了解COVID-19对hbcu的影响，研究结果可以推广到支持其他利益相关者，然后传播到更广泛的工程界。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

COVID-19 spurs an unprecedented global crisis disrupting life as we know it, affecting the overall economy, and abruptly transmuting the traditional methods, experiences and abilities of higher education institutions’ faculty, staff and students. With strict social distancing measures and shelter-in-place orders by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and state governments across the country, colleges and universities are forced to abruptly transition to forms of remote instruction. For Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), smaller endowments to pull from and historic inequity from state and federal funding sources have exacerbated the negative impact of COVID-19. While HBCUs enroll a significant percentage of first-generation and low-income students, they award a disproportionately greater share of degrees to minority students in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Specifically, HBCU engineering programs graduated 20.3% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded to Blacks and permanent residents in engineering in the U.S. between 2002 and 2012, although they only make up 0.02% of all ABET accredited programs. High-touch student support and a sense of belonging displayed at HBCUs, through faculty and peer mentoring, in addition to a myriad of supplemental programming, have been credited with the heightened sense of community reported by students, faculty and staff. With limited contact to students, COVID-19 has introduced a new set of challenges for HBCU students, faculty and staff, especially those majoring in or working closely to STEM academic areas, who have higher requirements linked to labs, hardware (e.g., laptops), software and internet access. As students, faculty and staff within engineering programs are dealing with multiple challenges at once, this project will allow these experiences to be captured now and not lost over time. The goal of this project is to collect information from engineering stakeholders at HBCUs related to COVID-19 and its impact on engineering education at HBCUs. Through this process, the following research question will be answered: How has COVID-19 impacted the success and persistence of engineering students, faculty and staff at historically Black colleges and universities? A core research team at FIU and a group of experts in engineering and STEM from HBCUs (HBCU Knowledge Partners) and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) will collaborate on a three phased project: Phase I: COVID-19 Impact on Engineering Stakeholders Survey (administered electronically), Phase II: detailed analysis and discussion of results – stakeholder and institutional implications, and Phase III: development of a cross-collaborative network between HBCU engineering programs. By gaining information from stakeholders related to the impact of this unprecedented event on their success and persistence, the research will add to the literature by demonstrating the impact of COVID-19 on engineering and STEM education at HBCUs. This study will provide insight around the type of support and partnerships that can be cultivated within engineering education at HBCUs to ensure on-going success and sustainability post COVID-19. By understanding the impact of COVID-19 at HBCUs, findings can be generalized to support other stakeholders and then disseminated to the broader engineering community.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.