Supporting Students’ Academic and Career Success with a Sustainable Energy Focus

以可持续能源为重点支持学生学术和职业成功

• 批准号: 2220860
• 负责人: Li Bai
• 金额: $ 150万
• 依托单位: Temple University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-01 至 2028-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2220860&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Supporting; Students; Academic; Career; Success

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Temple University. Temple is a public university in an urban setting, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, serving approximately 30,000 undergraduate and 10,000 graduate students. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 34 unique full time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering. First year students will receive four-year scholarships. The Sustainable Temple Energy and Power Scholars (STEPS) project will provide focused peer, faculty, and industry mentoring that will support scholars through to graduation. Of critical importance to the proposed project is the participation of 13 local industry partners interested in providing job placements to qualified scholars who graduate and facilitating professional development opportunities during their academic career. While efforts are primarily focused on enrolling and supporting S-STEM scholars, the STEPS project will ultimately contribute to building a college-wide framework to increase diversity and student success in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department and the college of engineering beyond the S-STEM award. The potential to change the perception of what is possible regarding college and careers for the scholars' families and community provides added impact. Additionally, STEPS' local industry contacts can be leveraged by other nearby institutions to improve the pipeline of qualified STEM graduates into the local STEM workforce.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. To achieve this overall goal, the project will work to accomplish three objectives: (1) increase enrollment into ECE of low-income, academically talented students by implementing a holistic, targeted recruitment plan that leverages industry partnerships and uses existing ECE students as peer role models; (2) increase retention and graduation rates in ECE of low-income, academically talented students by engaging them in a suite of evidence-based curricular and co-curricular activities infused with industry collaboration, and by providing support services for learning; and (3) systematically support student career pathways in STEM, using internships and industry mentorship as cornerstones. STEPS will use the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) as a conceptual framework to gain a better understanding of factors that influence students’ academic and career choice and persistence. The research plan intends to use mainly qualitative analysis to accomplish this to fill a gap in the literature that is mainly based on quantitative studies. A robust process and outcomes evaluation will be employed to monitor and document program planning and implementation, which should aid in understanding the relationship(s) between specific program elements and intended program outcomes for the STEPS scholars. The analytic framework for evaluating the project consists of planning-process-outcome analyses from start to finish. Dissemination of the project results will include an implementation guide, a workshop on lessons learned to be delivered locally and at national conferences, peer reviewed conference/journal articles, and visits to other local institutions of higher education. 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 who earn degrees in STEM fields. The program 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.

该项目将为国家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做出贡献，支持在坦普尔大学留住和毕业有经济需求的高成就、低收入学生。坦普尔大学位于宾夕法尼亚州费城，是一所城市环境中的公立大学，为大约30,000名本科生和10,000名研究生提供服务。在为期6年的时间里，该项目将为34名正在攻读电气工程学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。一年级的学生将获得四年的奖学金。可持续寺庙能源和电力学者(STEPS)项目将提供有重点的同行、教师和行业指导，支持学者直到毕业。对拟议项目至关重要的是，13个当地行业合作伙伴有兴趣为毕业的合格学者提供就业机会，并促进他们在学术生涯中的专业发展机会。虽然努力主要集中在招收和支持S-STEM学者，但STEPS项目最终将有助于在整个学院建立一个框架，以增加电气和计算机工程(欧洲经委会)系和工程学院在S-STEM奖项之外的多样性和学生的成功。改变学者家庭和社区对大学和职业可能的看法的潜力提供了额外的影响。此外，STEPS在当地的行业联系可以被附近的其他机构利用，以改善合格的STEM毕业生进入当地STEM劳动力大军的渠道。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位毕业率。为了实现这一总目标，该项目将努力实现三个目标：(1)通过实施一项全面、有针对性的招聘计划，利用行业伙伴关系，并以现有的欧洲经委会学生为同行榜样，增加低收入、在学业上有天赋的学生进入欧洲经委会的人数；(2)通过让低收入、在学业上有天赋的学生参加一系列以行业合作为依据的课程和联合课程活动，并为学习提供支助服务，提高他们在欧洲经委会的保留率和毕业率；(3)以实习和行业指导为基石，系统地支持学生在STEM的职业道路。STEPS将使用社会认知职业理论(SCCT)作为概念框架，以更好地了解影响学生学业和职业选择和坚持性的因素。该研究计划打算主要使用定性分析来实现这一点，以填补文献中主要基于定量研究的空白。将采用强有力的过程和结果评估来监测和记录计划的规划和实施，这将有助于为STEPS学者理解特定计划要素和预期计划结果之间的关系(S)。评估项目的分析框架包括自始至终的规划-过程-结果分析。项目成果的传播将包括一份实施指南、将在当地和国家会议上举办的关于经验教训的讲习班、同行评议的会议/期刊文章以及对当地其他高等教育机构的访问。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学术天才学生的数量。该计划还旨在改善未来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。