The untapped community: Community colleges as an opportunity to broaden participation in engineering

到2022年，预计对工程师的需求将比预计毕业的学位课程多出100万。随着国家人口结构的变化，也迫切需要吸引女性和传统上在工程领域代表性不足的群体来解决劳动力短缺问题。社区大学非常适合成为这些努力的资源，有可能增加这类合格工程师的数量和多样性。尽管近年来社区学院受到了很多关注，但人们对社区学院工程专业学生在完成社区学院的课程并转入他们人生的下一个阶段（例如，经过认证的工程项目或他们的职业生涯）的经历知之甚少。由于这一时期对学生选择的工程职业道路有重要影响，本研究旨在了解社区大学工程专业学生的生活和讲述经历，特别关注那些来自代表性不足的群体（URGs）的学生。由于这是一个新兴的、多样化的人才库，有望满足劳动力需求，因此该项目有可能揭示urg在多种背景下的教育过程中遇到的障碍和催化剂。该项目涉及美国三个人口普查地区的各种社区大学项目，可以为全国的社区大学项目和四年制大学提供信息。这项工作还利用了美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）此前在社区学院的投资取得的进展，同时解决了不平等和排斥等社会正义问题，这些问题在特定学生群体（这里是社区大学生）难以获得学士学位的情况下长期存在。具体而言，该项目将解决以下研究问题：RQ1：来自URGs的社区学院工程专业学生的生活和讲述的故事是什么？RQ2: URG社区大学学生对他们的经历以及这些经历与环境的关系的理解如何影响他们未来的教育和职业规划？RQ3：如果有的话，社区大学工程专业学生的叙述在哪些方面揭示了压迫、特权和不平等的问题？在这个叙述性调查项目中，该项目将对来自弗吉尼亚州、德克萨斯州和亚利桑那州三个社区学院系统中代表性不足群体的参与者进行一系列深入访谈，在这三个社区学院系统中，所选的机构都为来自代表性不足群体的大量学生提供服务。这些社区学院是有意选择的，因为它们与四年制的工程学院有紧密的联系和/或衔接协议。更好地了解学生的经历，可以使学生在社区大学学习之初就积极主动地制定策略，定位和准备学生攻读四年制学位。此外，这项研究的结果有望揭示为什么现有的提高四年制大学转学率的努力效果有限，这可以为学术界、工业界和政府提供信息。

By the year 2022, the demand for engineers is projected to exceed their anticipated graduation from degree programs by 1 million. With the shifting demographics of the country, there is also an imperative need to attract women and people from groups traditionally underrepresented in engineering to address this workforce shortage. Community colleges are well suited to be a resource in these efforts with the potential to increase both the number and diversity of such qualified engineers. Although community colleges have received much attention in recent years, little is known about the experiences of community college engineering students as they complete their coursework at the community college and transfer to the next stage of their life (e.g., accredited engineering program or their career). As this time period critically influences students' chosen pathways to engineering careers, this study seeks to understand the lived and told experiences of community college engineering students, specifically focusing on those from underrepresented groups (URGs). As this is a budding, diverse pool of talent with promise in meeting the workforce needs, this project has the potential to uncover barriers and catalysts that URGs experience as they progress in their education in multiple contexts. This project involves diverse community college programs spanning three U.S. Census regions, which could inform both community college programs and four-year institutions across the country. This work also leverages the progress of prior National Science Foundation investments in community colleges while addressing issues of social justice such as inequity and exclusion, which are perpetuated when pathways to Bachelor's degrees are less accessible for particular groups of students - here, community college students. Specifically, the project will address the following research questions: RQ1: What are the lived and told stories of community college engineering students from URGs? RQ2: How do URG community college students' understandings of their experiences and the relationship of those experiences to the environment influence their plans for future education and careers? RQ3: In what ways, if any, do community college engineering students' narratives bring to light issues of oppression, privilege and inequality? In this narrative inquiry project, the project will conduct a series of in-depth interviews with participants from underrepresented groups at three community college systems in Virginia, Texas, and Arizona, where the selected institutions each serve large numbers of students from underrepresented groups. These community colleges were chosen intentionally as they have close proximity to and/or articulation agreements with four-year institutions with engineering programs. Gaining a better understanding of student experiences promises to enable proactive development of strategies to position and prepare students to pursue four-year degrees from the inception of their studies at community colleges. Moreover, findings from this study promise to shed light on why existing efforts to increase transfer rates to four-year institutions have had limited effectiveness, which could inform academia, industry, and government.