Strengthening Pathways for the Domestic Graduate Engineering Workforce and Future Professoriate: Increasing Access to Engineering Master’s Programs

该项目将通过支持宾夕法尼亚州立大学表现出经济需求的高成就、低收入学生留住研究生并在随后毕业，从而促进全国对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求。在为期6年的时间里，该项目将吸引并资助45名攻读工程学科硕士学位的全日制学生。学生将获得为期两年的奖学金，并参与旨在影响学术和社会成功的项目。项目活动将包括有目的的策略，以提高对工程硕士课程的兴趣、申请和入学人数。此外，在两年的学者学习计划中，还将提供辅导(团体和个人)和职业发展规划等保留活动。最后，该项目计划为54名教职员工培养包容性指导方面的技能，这些技能的影响将超出该项目的持续时间。通过为“隐藏的”低收入研究生群体提供经济支持，该项目预计将改善学生的社会经济流动性。此外，拥有更多样化高级学位的国内工程师队伍将扩大，他们将在STEM员工队伍中担任更多的领导和指导职位。该项目还将培养一种包容的文化，并在招聘和录取广泛界定的服务不足的研究生方面取得持续的成功，方法是对大量教师进行包容性指导实践方面的教育。最后，获得工程学硕士学位可能会培养一些学者对博士项目的兴趣，从而增加未来工程学教师的潜在人才库，这是国家迫切需要的。这些潜在的新教师将成为未来其他低收入家庭学生的榜样，这种总体方法有很大的潜力在其他机构复制，以增加国内工程学教师的数量。该项目的智力优势基于通过期望价值、自我效能和角色认同理论来考察高成就的低收入硕士学生的社会化和成功完成项目。主要目标是促进工程学硕士学生的职业发展，发展和多样化工程劳动力，并通过发展一个在包容性指导方面熟练的教员社区来维持宾夕法尼亚州立大学工程学院的包容性环境。在混合方法研究中使用多方面的数据收集，项目团队希望三角的定性和定量数据将产生对硕士学生社会化和成功完成项目的丰富理解。将传播研究生过渡和身份形成方面的最佳做法。这个项目有可能将我们所知道的对代表不足的少数族裔学生的模范辅导扩展到低收入学生。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入、有经济需求的低收入学业天才学生的数量。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业成功、留住、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优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention into graduate school and subsequent graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at The Pennsylvania State University. Over its 6-year duration, this project will attract and fund scholarships to 45 full-time students who are pursuing master’s degrees in engineering disciplines. Students will receive 2-year scholarships and participate in programming designed to impact academic and social success. Project activities will include intentional strategies to increase interest, applications, and enrollment in engineering master’s programs. In addition, retention activities such as mentoring (group and individual) and professional development programming will be offered for the two years of the scholars’ programs of study. Finally, the project plans to build skill in inclusive mentoring for 54 faculty members that will have impact beyond the duration of this project. By financially supporting the “hidden” population of low-income graduate students, the project expects to improve students’ socio-economic mobility. Furthermore, an expanded pool of domestic engineers with advanced degrees who are more diverse will be poised to take on greater leadership and mentorship positions within the STEM workforce. The project will also foster a culture of inclusion and sustained success in the recruitment and matriculation of underserved graduate students broadly defined, by educating a critical mass of faculty in inclusive mentorship practices. Finally, the achievement of a master’s degree in engineering will likely foster interest in doctoral programs for some of the scholars, thus increasing the potential pool of future engineering faculty, which is an urgent national need. These potential new faculty will serve as role models for other low-income students in the future, and this overall approach has strong potential to be replicated at other institutions to increase the numbers of domestic faculty in engineering.The intellectual merit of the project is based on examining high-achieving low-income master’s student socialization and successful program completion through the lens of Expectancy Value, Self-Efficacy, and Role Identity theories. The broad goals are to facilitate the professional advancement of engineering master’s students, grow and diversify the engineering workforce, and sustain an inclusive environment in the Pennsylvania State University College of Engineering by developing a community of faculty skilled in inclusive mentoring. Using multifaceted data collection within a mixed methods study, the project team expects that triangulated qualitative and quantitative data will yield a rich understanding of master’s student socialization and successful program completion. Best practices in graduate student transitions and identity formation will be disseminated. This project has the potential to extend what we know about exemplary mentoring of underrepresented minority students to low-income students. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically-talented students with demonstrated financial need who 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.