Urban Sustainability Engineering Fellows: Catalyzing Cultural Transformation in Matriculation Pathways from Community College to Bachelor's Degree Completion

该项目将通过支持表现出经济需要的成绩优异的低收入家庭学生的保留和毕业，满足国家对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为密苏里大学堪萨斯城分校和大都会社区学院的56名学生提供四年奖学金。奖学金将资助奖学金获得者攻读机械或土木工程学士学位。该项目将寻求提供一个全面的奖学金计划，以支持学生从大都会社区学院成功过渡到密苏里大学堪萨斯城分校土木与机械工程系。该项目旨在培养土木与机械工程系包容参与的文化，提高城市学生获得工程学士学位的成功率。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、优秀本科生的STEM学位完成率。该项目将包括三个综合组成部分，重点关注与堪萨斯城城市核心相关的问题，其中包括都市社区学院、密苏里大学堪萨斯城分校和堪萨斯城公立学区。课程内容将包括思维演算实验室I和II、工程研究导论、更新城市核心的基石设计和更新城市核心的顶点设计。课外支持部分将包括研究和领导经验。文化支持部分将包括以学生为主导的管理、与行业和城市社区利益相关者的密切合作、群体之间和群体内部的经验共享，以及教师对以学生为中心的教学方法的反思。各个项目的组成部分将围绕一个统一的项目来组织，以支持堪萨斯城的城市核心。将收集数据，从学生、教师、员工和行政管理的角度对部门文化的变化进行纵向、混合方法分析。分析城市社区学院工程转校生在坚持、工程认同、工程职业抱负和学业动机方面的变化。社区学院的工程专业学生进入四年制大学是提高STEM高等教育公平性的一个极具潜力的途径。本项目所制定的综合策略可为其他城市高等院校提供一个维持转校生顺利入学和毕业的模式。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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 project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need. Over its five-year duration, the project will fund four-year scholarships to 56 students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Metropolitan Community College. The scholarships will support the Scholars' pursuit of bachelor's degrees in mechanical or civil engineering. The project will seek to offer a well-rounded scholarship program that supports successful transition of students from Metropolitan Community College into the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The program will be designed to develop a culture of inclusive participation within the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering and enhance the success of urban students in obtaining bachelor's degrees in engineering.The overall goal of the project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This program will include three integrated components focused on issues related to the urban core of Kansas City, which includes Metropolitan Community College, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and the Kansas City Public School District. The curricular component will include Mindset Calculus Labs I and II, Introduction to Engineering Research, Cornerstone Design to Renew the Urban Core, and Capstone Design to Renew the Urban Core. The co-curricular support component will include research and leadership experiences. The cultural support component will include student-led governance, close collaboration with industry and urban community stakeholders, inter- and intra-cohort shared experiences, and faculty reflection on student-centered pedagogies. The individual program components will be organized around a unifying them of supporting the urban core of Kansas City. Data will be collected to conduct a longitudinal, mixed-method analysis of change in departmental culture from the student, faculty, staff, and administrative perspective. The change in persistence, engineering identity, engineering career aspiration, and academic motivation of urban community college engineering transfer students will also be analyzed. Matriculation of engineering students from community colleges to four-year institutions is a pathway with great potential to increase equity in STEM higher education. The comprehensive strategy developed in this project may provide a model for sustaining successful matriculation and graduation of transfer students that could be adopted by other urban institutions of higher learning. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income 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.