Leadership Development Program in Engineering and Technology

领导力发展计划仿照了一个成功的3年奖学金计划，该计划由一个校友资助，该计划是为寻求工程和技术学士学位的有才华的经济困难转校生提供资金的。该项目为学生提供金钱奖励、额外的培训和指导机会，为他们在工程领域担任领导角色做好准备。事实证明，该项目取得了巨大的成功，第一批六名学生在转到SIUC后的两年内全部毕业，并获得了快速通道的职业生涯。为了延续这一模式，申请者将从伊利诺伊州最南端的11个社区大学学区中挑选出来。共有29名获奖者在三年级和四年级获得9000美元的奖学金。这些奖学金消除了经济障碍，这些障碍将阻止主要是第一代大学生群体实现职业生涯，并提高这些学生的招生、留住、毕业率和就业安置。特别是，该项目的目标是实现至少90%的三年毕业率(即在社区大学一级开始四年半后)，并通过有兴趣培养多样化工程人员的企业赞助商实现自给自足。对奖学金获得者的支持活动建立在工程学院现有的许多学生支持计划的基础上(即，同行指导、少数族裔支持计划和辅导)。这个项目的智力价值在于确定是否可以通过提供财政支持和实施学生支持和领导力计划来提高工程和技术专业吸引的学生的留校率、毕业率和就业率。该项目的更广泛影响是增加了工程学毕业生的社会和经济背景，从而增加了有准备的个人进入就业市场。

The Leadership Development Program is modeled after a successful 3 year scholarship program that was funded by an alum for talented economically-disadvantaged transfer students seeking a Bachelor of Science degrees in engineering and technology. The program provided students with a monetary award, additional training and mentoring opportunities that prepared them for leadership roles in engineering. The program has proven to be a tremendous success with all six students of its first cohort graduating within two years of transferring to SIUC and securing fast-track careers. In continuing this model, applicants are chosen from Illinois' southern-most 11 community college districts. A total of twenty-nine recipients receive $9000 scholarships their junior and senior years. These scholarships remove economic barriers that would prohibit a largely first generation college student demographic from achieving a professional career, and improve the recruitment, retention, graduation rates, and job placement of these students. In particular, the project aims to achieve a three-year graduation rate (i.e., four and one half years after beginning at the community-college level) of at least ninety percent and become self-sustaining through corporate sponsors interested in developing a diverse engineering population. Support activities for scholarship recipients build upon the College of Engineering's many existing student support programs (i.e., peer mentoring, minority support programs, and tutoring). The intellectual merit of this project is the determination as to whether retention, graduation, and job placement rates of students attracted to engineering and technology can be increased by providing financial support and by implementing student support and leadership programs. The broader impact of the project is an increase in the breadth of social and economic backgrounds of students graduating in engineering and, thus, of prepared individuals entering the job market.