Planning: Track 1: Engineering WISE (Wellness through Integrated Support and Engagement)

这项规划拨款将允许为工程公平中心（工程明智中心）制定蓝图，该中心将通过综合支持和参与优先考虑健康，推动肯塔基大学（英国）工程学院（COE）的文化变革。心理健康对传统上在工程专业得不到充分服务的学生有不同的影响。例如，性少数族裔、第一代、黑人和拉丁裔学生认为，心理问题对他们学业的影响比工科学生更大。因此，我们必须推动文化变革，创造一个支持和公平的工程环境，优先考虑和支持学生的心理健康。该中心的使命宣言是：创造公平和包容的做法，旨在提高学生的福祉和提高COE内的归属感。该中心将增加获得支持学生心理健康的资源的机会，并确保学生收到关于他们的身份和挑战的积极信息。关系是实现这一目标的重要工具，这一目标是帮助一个多元化的工程专业学生社区通过他们的工程培训和其他方面茁壮成长。虽然该中心将广泛影响所有工程专业的学生，但活动将旨在改善传统上在工程专业得不到充分服务的学生的心理健康和归属感。此外，规划补助金将确保中心的活动可转移到外部机构，包括那些为历史上不仅在工程方面而且在更广泛的高等教育方面服务不足的学生服务的机构。这项工作将为如何为所有学生创造支持性和包容性的环境提供见解，使学生能够通过工程培训及其他培训茁壮成长。该计划拨款将通过五个同步阶段为工程公平中心开发、确定和改进活动，重点是支持学生的心理健康和健康：1)改进基于先前研究建立的中心活动，2)确定新的中心活动，3)将活动整合到现有的机构资源中，4)确保活动转移到外部机构，5)收集基线数据并制定评估中心成果的计划。参与式研究方法将与关键的工程利益相关者（如学生、教师、管理人员）一起使用，以确定工程中的心理健康问题，确定优先领域，并制定干预措施，以便融入未来的中心。教师和学生访谈将有助于理解教师沟通如何积极（和消极）影响心理健康文化和课堂归属感。这将允许根据工程专业学生的经验，为工程教师量身定制和具体的沟通培训。最后，由学生、教职员工和管理人员组成的焦点小组将指导中心的结构、功能和品牌战略，以提高学生的参与度。一个内部咨询委员会将确保中心的活动补充和整合现有的校园心理健康和保健资源。此外，一个外部咨询委员会由来自不同机构的教师组成，他们在学生心理健康研究方面有经验，并通过STEM为不同的学生提供支持。这个外部咨询委员会将确保为中心开发的活动满足学生的需求，这些学生在不同的机构背景下传统上在工程方面得不到充分的服务。这项计划拨款将为工程WISE中心制定蓝图，最大限度地影响工程领域的心理健康文化（重点关注在工程领域得不到充分服务的学生），这不仅在英国可行，而且在其他机构也可行。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 planning grant will allow for the development of a blueprint for a Center for Equity in Engineering, the Engineering WISE Center, that will drive cultural change in the College of Engineering (COE) at the University of Kentucky (UK) through prioritization of Wellness through Integrated Support and Engagement. Mental health differentially impacts students who are traditionally underserved in engineering. For instance, sexual minority, first generation, Black and Latinx students perceive that mental difficulties impact their academics more frequently than their engineering peers. Thus, we must drive cultural change to create a supportive and equitable engineering environment that prioritizes and supports student mental health. The Center Mission Statement is: to create equitable and inclusive practices aimed at enhancing student well-being and improving sense of belonging within a COE. The Center will increase access to resources that support student mental health and ensure students receive positive messages about their identities and challenges. Relationships are an important tool in meeting this goal, which is to help a diverse community of engineering students thrive through their engineering training and beyond. While the Center will broadly impact all engineering students, activities will be designed to improve mental health and sense of belonging outcomes for students traditionally underserved in engineering. Additionally, the planning grant will ensure that the Center activities are transferable to outside institutions, including those that serve students who are historically underserved not only in engineering but higher education more broadly. This work will provide insight into how to create supportive and inclusive environments for all students, allowing students to thrive through their engineering training and beyond.This planning grant will develop, identify and refine activities for a Center for Equity in Engineering focused around supporting student mental health and wellness through five concurrent stages: 1) Refine Center activities established based on prior research, 2) Identify novel Center activities, 3) Integrate activities into existing institutional resources, 4) Ensure transfer of activities to outside institutions, and 5) Collect baseline data and develop a plan to evaluate Center outcomes. Participatory research methods will be used with key engineering stakeholders (e.g., students, faculty, administrators) to define the problem of mental health in engineering, identify priority areas and develop interventions for integration into the future Center. Faculty and student interviews will facilitate understanding of how faculty communication can positively (and negatively) impact mental health culture and sense of belonging in the classroom. This will allow for the development of tailored and specific communication training for engineering faculty that is informed by the engineering student experience. Finally, focus groups with students, faculty, staff and administrators will guide strategies for Center structure, function and branding to enhance student engagement. An internal advisory board will ensure that the Center activities complement and integrate with existing campus mental health and wellness resources. Further, an external advisory board consists of faculty from diverse institutions with experience in research on student mental health and supporting pathways for diverse students through STEM. This external advisory board will ensure that activities developed for the Center meet the needs of students that are traditionally underserved in engineering across diverse institutional contexts. This planning grant will result in a blueprint for the Engineering WISE Center that will maximize impact on mental health culture in engineering (with a focus on students who are underserved in engineering) that is feasible not only at UK, but also outside institutions.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.