IUSE/PFE:RED Two-Year: Engineering Pathways for Access, Community, and Transfer (EPACT)

社区学院（cc）在美国高等教育中扮演着至关重要的角色，是为来自不同人群的学生提供教育机会的重要途径。由于超过一半的CC学生来自低收入、弱势群体和/或第一代，CC必须在扩大工程参与方面发挥突出作用，以满足劳动力需求和解决社会问题。不幸的是，尽管CC提供了教育机会，但在转到大学工程学士学位课程的过程中存在重大差距，这影响了CC学生作为工程师的身份，他们在两年内完成课程的能力，以及他们毕业后获得就业的成功。在内华达州，这个问题很重要，工科学生的转学过程需要革命性的改变。从CC转到内华达大学里诺分校（UNR）的工程专业学生毕业率很低，因为CC学生面临的结构、文化和组织方面的挑战会影响他们的毕业和毕业后的成功。该项目名为“获取、社区和转学工程途径”（EPACT），是内华达州高等教育系统（NSHE）院校之间的合作项目。EPACT革命旨在通过消除CC工程转学生在学术进步方面遇到的障碍来促进NSHE的变化。EPACT将带来革命性的变化：1)作为一个模式变革项目，帮助其他高等教育系统在工程专业学生转学过程中进行转型的文化、结构和组织变革；2)利用从EPACT研究中获得的知识来解决国家对促进多样化和准备充分的STEM劳动力的需求；3)发展以学生为中心的工程教育，专注于工程师的专业形成；4)传播从项目中吸取的经验教训，以促进工程转学学生在其他高等教育系统中的成功；5)向地方、州和联邦合作伙伴提供信息，说明EPACT等项目的价值，帮助越来越多的未被充分代表的群体在转学到工程学位课程时遇到障碍。EPACT团队将使用制度转型基础模型（FIT）作为指导变革理论来开展该项目。FIT变革模型基于John Kotter的理论，基于五个价值观：公平的结构和结果、以学生为中心的机构、大规模实施、数据知情决策和全系统协作。FIT模型将指导EPACT团队解决阻碍工程转学生成功的文化、结构和组织障碍，并研究政策和程序对转学生自我效能感、工程身份和归属感的影响。EPACT活动将通过解决以下研究问题来推进知识：1)EPACT愿景、总体目标、目的和活动如何有效地实现NSHE内部的文化、结构和组织变革？2) EPACT的实施与影响CC和大学工程教学师资发展的更广泛的生态系统之间的联系有多紧密，以及由此产生的CC工程转学生的教育环境，导致学术成功、在CC的保留、转到大学工程学位课程，以及自我效能感、工程身份和归属感的变化？研究结果将传播给全国卫生系统内外的广泛受众。一旦EPACT愿景得以实施，在NSHE和机构层面进行的文化、结构和组织变革将为CC的教师和学生带来真正的、可量化的好处。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。

Community colleges (CCs) play a crucial role in US higher education and are an important pathway to providing educational opportunities for students from diverse populations. Since over half of CC students are low-income, from underrepresented groups, and/or first-generation, CCs must play a prominent role in broadening participation in engineering to meet workforce needs and to solve societal problems. Unfortunately, despite the educational opportunities provided by CCs, there are significant gaps in the transfer process to university engineering Bachelor’s degree programs that impact CC students’ identity as engineers, their ability to complete their course of study in two years, and their success in securing employment after graduation. In Nevada, this problem is significant and the transfer process for engineering students needs revolutionary change. Engineering students who transfer from CCs to the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) have low graduation rates due to structural, cultural, and organizational challenges that CC students face that affect their graduation and post-graduation success. The program entitled Engineering Pathway for Access, Community, and Transfer (EPACT), is a partnership among Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) institutions. The EPACT revolution aims to catalyze change in NSHE by removing barriers to academic advancement experienced by CC engineering transfer students. EPACT will create revolutionary change by 1) Serving as a model change project to help other systems of higher education make transformational cultural, structural, and organizational changes in the engineering student transfer process; 2) Using the knowledge gained from EPACT research to address a national need to promote a diverse and well-prepared STEM workforce; 3) Developing student-centered engineering education focused on the professional formation of engineers, 4) Disseminating the lessons learned from the project to promote engineering transfer student success at other systems of higher education 5) Providing information to local, state, and federal partners on the value of programs like EPACT for the growing number of underrepresented groups that encounter barriers to transferring into engineering degree programs.The EPACT team will use the Foundations for Institutional Transformation (FIT) Model as a guiding change theory to carry out this project. The FIT change model, based on John Kotter’s theory, is grounded in five values: equitable structures and outcomes, student-centered institutions, implementation at scale, data-informed decision-making, and system-wide collaboration. The FIT model will guide the EPACT team to address cultural, structural, and organizational barriers to engineering transfer student success and study the impact of policies and procedures on transfer student self-efficacy, engineering identity, and belongingness. EPACT activities will advance knowledge by addressing the following research questions: 1) How effectively can the EPACT vision, overarching goal, objectives, and activities achieve cultural, structural, and organizational change within NSHE?; and 2) How strongly is the implementation of EPACT linked to the broader ecosystem that affects CC and university engineering teaching faculty development and the resulting CC engineering transfer students’ educational environment, leading to academic success, and retention in their CCs, transfer to university engineering degree programs, and changes in self-efficacy, engineering identity, and belongingness? Research findings will be disseminated to a wide audience both internally and externally to NSHE. Once the EPACT vision is executed, cultural, structural, and organizational changes made at the NSHE and institutional levels will produce real, quantifiable benefits for CC faculty and 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.