Curricular, Co-curricular, Social, and Financial Supports for Successful Transfer and Graduation of Engineering Undergraduates from Rural/Nontraditional Backgrounds

该项目将通过支持波尔克州立学院和南佛罗里达大学表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，为全国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做出贡献。参与的学生将在波尔克州立学院攻读副学士学位，然后转到南佛罗里达大学完成工程学士学位。该项目为期五年，将向50名全日制或非全日制学生提供四年奖学金，分为两组，每组25名学生。为了帮助转学生顺利过渡到大学并支持他们的学业成功，该项目将提供(a)预工程学院，(b)以大挑战为重点的基于项目的学习，(c)以同伴为主导的课程驱动的学习社区，以创造一个社会学习环境，(d)积极主动的建议和指导，以及(e)职业能力培训。这个项目的新颖之处在于它作为一个管道的作用，确保农村的非传统转学生进入大都市研究型大学的学业成功和社会融合。该计划期望这些支援能让学生取得副学士学位和工程学士学位，从而为就业和事业成功开辟更多机会。该项目将利用和加强波尔克县农村地区高中之间的关系，并将通过大学大学高中的门户招收非传统学生。建立成功的STEM转学支持系统的经验教训和指导方针，将传播给其他院校，以便在两年制和四年制院校之间建立有效的学术和社会途径。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。具体来说，该项目旨在通过专门针对学生需求的课程、课外、社会和经济干预，建立从大专学位到学士学位的桥梁。与郊区或城市转校生相比，农村社区大学转学到四年制大学的学生面临着额外的社会文化挑战，农村学生转学到城市大学显然需要适应社会环境。本计划将探讨所建议的课程与课外活动对社区大学学生的留校、转学和学位取得的影响，以及这些活动对学生工程认同发展的影响。该项目还将研究课程和课外活动对社区大学转学生从农村到城市环境的社会适应的影响。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 at Polk State College and the University of South Florida. The participating students will pursue an Associate degree at Polk State College and transfer to the University of South Florida to complete a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Over its five-year duration, the project will provide four-year scholarships to 50 full- or part-time students, in two cohorts of 25 students. To facilitate transfer students’ transition to the University and support their academic success, the project will provide (a) a Pre-Engineering Academy, (b) Grand Challenges-focused project-based learning, (c) peer-led course-driven learning communities to create a social learning environment, (d) proactive advising and mentoring, and (e) career competency training. The novel feature of this project is its role as a conduit to ensure academic success and social integration for rural, non-traditional transfer students into a metropolitan research-intensive university. The project expects that such supports will enable the students to earn an associate's degree and a bachelor’s degree in engineering, thus opening up greater opportunities for employment and career success. The project will leverage and enhance relationships between high schools in rural parts of Polk County, and will recruit non-traditional students through the Gateway to College Collegiate High School. Lessons learned and guidelines for building successful STEM transfer support systems will be disseminated to other institutions intending to build effective academic and social pathways between two-year and four-year institutions. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specifically, the project aims to create a bridge from associate to baccalaureate degree completion through curricular, co-curricular, social, and financial interventions specifically tailored to the students’ needs. Rural community college students transferring to a four-year institution face additional socio-cultural challenges compared to suburban or urban transfer students, with social acclimatization explicitly needed for rural students transferring to an urban university. This project will investigate the impact of the proposed curricular and co-curricular activities on community college students’ retention, transfer, and degree attainment, and the effect of those activities on students’ engineering identity development. The project will also examine the effects of curricular and co-curricular activities on community college transfer students’ social acclimatization in moving from a rural to a metropolitan environment. 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.