Greenway Institute of Elizabethtown College Center for Sustainability and Equity in Engineering

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。该项目将通过创建绿道公平与可持续发展中心（GCES）来扩大工程参与。GCES将致力于招募和留住一个多元化的学生群体，无论社会经济地位或种族如何，他们都能平等地融入、参与并发展自己的专业技能和工程身份。大多数传统的工程项目体现了偏见和做法，使不平等得以延续：立即给学生排名的评分方案，竞争和孤立的工作文化，强调被动的讲课，以及与现实世界工程的影响隔绝。这不利于那些在工程专业中意见和才能未被充分代表的学生，包括未被充分代表的少数民族、女性、来自农村地区的学生、符合佩尔资格的学生和/或第一代学生。GCES将以项目（包括教师专业发展）为目标，并在有大量未被充分代表的学生的社区进行推广，以确保我们服务和雇用的学生、教师和教职员工是多样化的。我们还将招募各种各样的导师来资助学生进入工程领域。GCES将结合伊丽莎白镇学院的abet认证工程课程和与这些学生团体合作的长期经验，以及格林威研究所基于项目的学习课程，并关注可持续性。GCES将是一个支持性的、包容性的社区，在这里，每个学生都可以通过解决现实问题的实践、团队合作项目来学习工程，从而培养他们在工程领域茁壮成长所需的能力、信心和联系。由于这种创新将发生在资源受限的环境中，因此它在其他此类环境中的潜在可复制性得到了增强。这个为期两年的项目将试点一个完全基于问题的课程，包括(1)设计和实施公平和可持续性的工程教育；(2)培训教师设计和提供以公平为中心的工程教学，以加强来自代表性不足群体的学生的工程身份和成功。在第一年，学习成果将被指定，并开发一个为期一年，100%实践的可持续工程试点项目，可持续工程公平（SEE）。SEE将围绕八个学习模块进行组织，每个模块都侧重于不同的工程挑战。模块的结构将逐步发展一年级学生应该掌握的工程技能，并将具体基于ABET指定的掌握熟练程度里程碑和结果。动手，支持性的项目工作将与情境化，及时的教学相结合，以确保学生对数学和科学基础有很强的掌握，并有足够的机会练习，修改和改进他们的工作。在第二学年，教师将试点为期一年的SEE项目，其中包括来自我们目标群体的强大代表。SEE将使GCES能够磨练其实践，培训其教师，并建立基础设施，以支持一个完全包容，公平的工程项目。围绕公平实践重新设计工程教育对未被充分代表的学生的工程认同感的影响将被严格评估。来自SEE的数据和反馈将帮助伊丽莎白顿学院和GCES教师重新设计他们的课程，以结合实地测试的最佳实践。第一阶段试点项目的SEE学生将获得一整年工程教育的免费学费和学分；成功完成一年的学习后，学生可以继续在宾夕法尼亚州的伊丽莎白镇学院或其他高等教育机构学习。由签约第三方专家进行的项目评估将(1)提供GCES的责任信息，包括GCES实施资助活动的保真度和我们对公平影响的承诺；(2)支持持续改进SEE试点中开发的工作；(3)支持生成关于如何重新设计工程教育以实现公平的知识，并以可转移到其他校园的方式进行。在第二阶段，GCES将开始将模型项目扩展为一个完整的、为期四年的工程项目。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。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).This project will broaden participation in engineering by creating the Greenway Center for Equity and Sustainability (GCES). GCES will be dedicated to recruiting and retaining a diverse community of students who are all equally included, engaged, and enabled to develop their professional skills and engineering identities regardless of socioeconomic status or race. Most traditional engineering programs embody biases and practices that perpetuate inequity: grading schemes that immediately rank students, competitive and isolating work cultures, emphasis on passive lectures, and isolation from the impact of real-world engineering. This disadvantages students whose opinions and talents are underrepresented in the engineering profession, including underrepresented racial minorities, women, students from rural locations, Pell-eligible students, and/or first-generation students. GCES will target programs (including teacher professional development) and outreach in communities with larger numbers of underrepresented students to ensure that the students, teachers, and faculty we serve, and employ are diverse. We will also recruit diverse mentors to sponsor students into engineering. GCES will combine Elizabethtown College’s ABET-accredited engineering program and longstanding experience working with these student groups with the Greenway Institute’s project-based learning curriculum and focus on sustainability. GCES will be a supportive, inclusive community where every student can develop the competence, confidence, and connections they need to thrive in engineering by learning engineering through hands-on, teamwork-based projects that address real-world problems. Because this innovation will occur in a resource constrained environment, its potential replicability across other such settings is enhanced.This two-year program will pilot a fully problem-based curriculum that includes (1) design and implementation of engineering education for equity and sustainability and (2) training of faculty to design and deliver equity-focused engineering instruction that strengthens the engineering identity and success of students from underrepresented groups. In Year 1, learning outcomes will be specified and a one-year, 100% hands-on pilot program in sustainable engineering developed, Sustainable Engineering for Equity (SEE). SEE will be organized around eight learning modules, each focused on a different engineering challenge. Modules will be structured to progressively develop the engineering skills that first-year students should master and will be specifically based on mastery proficiency milestones and outcomes specified by ABET. Hands-on, supportive project work will be paired with contextualized, just-in-time instruction to make sure students have strong mastery of math and science fundamentals and plenty of opportunities to practice, revise, and improve their work. In Year 2, faculty will pilot the one-year SEE program with a sample of students that includes strong representation from our target groups. SEE will enable the GCES to hone its practices, train its faculty, and set up infrastructure to support a fully inclusive, equitable engineering program. The impact of redesigning engineering education around equitable practices on underrepresented students’ sense of engineering identity will be rigorously evaluated. Data and feedback from SEE will help Elizabethton College and GCES faculty redesign their courses to incorporate field-tested best practices. SEE students in the Phase I pilot will receive free tuition and credit for a full year of engineering education; after successfully completing the year, students can continue at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania or another institution of higher education. Project evaluation by a contracted third-party expert will (1) provide information on accountability of the GCES with respect to both fidelity of GCES implementation of grant activities and our stated commitment to equitable impacts, (2) support continuous improvement of work developed in the SEE pilot, and (3) support generation of knowledge about how engineering education can be redesigned for equity, in ways that can be transferred to other campuses. In Phase II, the GCES will begin extension of the model program into a full, four-year engineering program.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.