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

这笔规划赠款将用于制定工程公平中心(工程WISE中心)的蓝图，该中心将通过综合支持和参与确定健康的优先顺序，推动肯塔基大学(英国)工程学院(COE)的文化变革。心理健康对传统上缺乏工程学服务的学生产生了不同的影响。例如，性别少数、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他们的工程学同龄人更频繁。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。该中心的使命声明是：创造公平和包容性的做法，旨在提高学生的福祉和改善归属感在一个COE。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。人际关系是实现这一目标的重要工具，这一目标旨在帮助不同的工程专业学生通过他们的工程培训和其他方面的培训而茁壮成长。虽然该中心将广泛影响所有工程学学生，但活动将旨在改善传统上缺乏工程学服务的学生的心理健康和归属感结果。此外，规划补助金将确保中心的活动可以转移到外部机构，包括那些为那些不仅在工程领域，而且在更广泛的高等教育领域一直没有得到充分服务的学生提供服务的机构。这项工作将深入了解如何为所有学生创造支持性和包容性的环境，让学生在他们的工程培训和其他方面茁壮成长。这项规划拨款将为工程公平中心开发、确定和完善活动，重点是通过五个并行阶段支持学生的心理健康和健康：1)完善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)确保将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。将与主要的工程学利益相关者(例如，学生、教师、管理人员)一起使用参与式研究方法来定义工程学中的心理健康问题，确定优先领域，并制定干预措施，以便整合到未来的中心。教师和学生的访谈将有助于理解教师沟通如何对课堂上的心理健康文化和归属感产生积极(和消极)影响。这将允许根据工程学学生的经验，为工程学教师开发量身定做的特定沟通培训。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，以增强学生的参与度。一个内部咨询委员会将确保该中心的活动补充和整合现有的校园心理健康和健康资源。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和通过STEM为不同学生提供支持途径方面具有经验。这个外部咨询委员会将确保为该中心开发的活动满足传统上在不同机构背景下在工程学方面服务不足的学生的需求。这一规划拨款将为工程学WISE中心带来一份蓝图，该蓝图将最大限度地影响工程学中的心理健康文化(重点关注在工程学中服务不足的学生)，这不仅在英国是可行的，而且在外部机构也是可行的。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 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.