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。由于美国疾病控制中心（CDC）和全国各州政府采取了严格的社交距离措施和就地避难命令，学院和大学被迫突然过渡到远程教学形式。对于历史上的黑人学院和大学（HBCU）来说，从州和联邦资金来源中提取的捐赠基金较少，以及历史上的不公平加剧了COVID-19的负面影响。虽然HBCUs招收了相当比例的第一代和低收入学生，但他们在科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）领域向少数民族学生授予的学位比例更大。具体来说，HBCU工程课程毕业的20.3%的所有学士学位授予黑人和永久居民在工程在美国2002年和2012年之间，虽然他们只占0.02%的所有ABET认证的程序。通过教师和同行指导，以及无数的补充方案，在HBCU展示的高接触学生支持和归属感，已经被认为是学生，教师和工作人员报告的社区意识增强的原因。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或与STEM学术领域密切合作的学生，他们对实验室、硬件（例如，笔记本电脑）、软件和互联网接入。由于工程项目中的学生，教师和工作人员正在同时处理多种挑战，该项目将允许现在捕获这些经验，而不会随着时间的推移而丢失。该项目的目标是从HBCU的工程利益相关者那里收集与COVID-19及其对HBCU工程教育的影响有关的信息。通过这一过程，将回答以下研究问题：COVID-19如何影响历史上黑人学院和大学的工程专业学生，教师和工作人员的成功和坚持？FIU的核心研究团队和HBCUs的工程和STEM专家组HBCU知识合作伙伴（HBCU Knowledge Partners）和全国黑人工程师协会（NSBE）将合作开展一个三阶段项目：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-利益攸关方和机构影响，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得有关这一前所未有的事件对他们的成功和持久性的影响的信息，该研究将通过展示COVID-19对HBCU工程和STEM教育的影响来增加文献。这项研究将提供有关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COVID-19后的持续成功和可持续性。通过了解COVID-19对HBCU的影响，可以将研究结果推广到支持其他利益相关者，然后传播到更广泛的工程社区。该奖项反映了NSF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.