Greenway Institute of Elizabethtown College Center for Sustainability and Equity in Engineering

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。该项目将通过创建绿道公平与可持续发展中心(GCES)来扩大对工程的参与。GCES将致力于招收和留住多样化的学生群体，这些学生平等地被纳入、参与并能够发展他们的专业技能和工程身份，无论他们的社会经济地位或种族如何。大多数传统的工程学课程都体现了使不平等永久化的偏见和做法：立即对学生进行排名的评分方案、竞争和孤立的工作文化、强调被动的授课，以及与现实世界工程学的影响隔绝。这对其意见和才华在工程专业中的代表性不足的学生不利，包括代表性不足的少数族裔、妇女、来自农村地区的学生、符合佩尔标准的学生和/或第一代学生。GCE将针对学生人数较少的社区的项目(包括教师专业发展)和外展，以确保我们服务和雇用的学生、教师和教职员工是多样化的。我们还将招募不同的导师来资助学生进入工程学。GCES将把伊丽莎白镇学院认可的工程项目和与这些学生团体合作的长期经验与格林威学院的基于项目的学习课程结合起来，并关注可持续发展。GCES将是一个支持性的、包容性的社区，在这里，每个学生都可以通过实践、基于团队合作的项目来学习工程学，从而培养他们在工程学中茁壮成长所需的能力、信心和人脉。由于这一创新将发生在资源受限的环境中，因此其在其他此类环境中的潜在可复制性得到了增强。这个为期两年的项目将试行一个完全以问题为基础的课程，其中包括(1)设计和实施公平和可持续发展的工程教育，以及(2)培训教师，以设计和提供以公平为重点的工程教学，以加强来自代表性不足群体的学生的工程认同感和成功。在第一年，将指定学习成果，并开发一个为期一年、100%动手的可持续工程试点计划，可持续工程促进公平(参见)。SEE将围绕八个学习模块进行组织，每个模块侧重于不同的工程挑战。模块的结构将逐步发展一年级学生应该掌握的工程技能，并将具体基于掌握情况、熟练程度、里程碑和ABET规定的结果。实践的、支持性的项目工作将与情境化的、及时的指导相结合，以确保学生拥有强大的数学和科学基础知识，并有足够的机会练习、修改和改进他们的工作。在第二年，教职员工将试行为期一年的SEE项目，抽样的学生包括我们目标群体中具有较强代表性的学生。SEE将使GCES能够磨练其实践，培训其教师，并建立基础设施，以支持完全包容、公平的工程项目。围绕公平实践重新设计工程教育对未被充分代表的学生的工程认同感的影响将被严格评估。SEE的数据和反馈将帮助伊丽莎白学院和GCES教职员工重新设计他们的课程，以纳入经过实地测试的最佳实践。SEE第一阶段试点的学生将获得免费的学费和一整年的工程教育学分；在成功完成这一年后，学生可以继续在宾夕法尼亚州的伊丽莎白镇学院或其他高等教育机构继续学习。由签约的第三方专家进行的项目评估将(1)提供关于全球教育证书执行赠款活动的忠诚度和我们对公平影响的明确承诺的问责信息，(2)支持持续改进在SEE试点中开展的工作，以及(3)支持产生关于如何以可以转移到其他校园的方式重新设计公平的工程教育的知识。在第二阶段，GCES将开始将模型项目扩展为完整的四年工程项目。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).This project will broaden participation in engineering by creating the Greenway Center for Equity and Sustainability (GCES). GCES will be dedicated to recruiting and retaining a diverse community of students who are all equally included, engaged, and enabled to develop their professional skills and engineering identities regardless of socioeconomic status or race. Most traditional engineering programs embody biases and practices that perpetuate inequity: grading schemes that immediately rank students, competitive and isolating work cultures, emphasis on passive lectures, and isolation from the impact of real-world engineering. This disadvantages students whose opinions and talents are underrepresented in the engineering profession, including underrepresented racial minorities, women, students from rural locations, Pell-eligible students, and/or first-generation students. GCES will target programs (including teacher professional development) and outreach in communities with larger numbers of underrepresented students to ensure that the students, teachers, and faculty we serve, and employ are diverse. We will also recruit diverse mentors to sponsor students into engineering. GCES will combine Elizabethtown College’s ABET-accredited engineering program and longstanding experience working with these student groups with the Greenway Institute’s project-based learning curriculum and focus on sustainability. GCES will be a supportive, inclusive community where every student can develop the competence, confidence, and connections they need to thrive in engineering by learning engineering through hands-on, teamwork-based projects that address real-world problems. Because this innovation will occur in a resource constrained environment, its potential replicability across other such settings is enhanced.This two-year program will pilot a fully problem-based curriculum that includes (1) design and implementation of engineering education for equity and sustainability and (2) training of faculty to design and deliver equity-focused engineering instruction that strengthens the engineering identity and success of students from underrepresented groups. In Year 1, learning outcomes will be specified and a one-year, 100% hands-on pilot program in sustainable engineering developed, Sustainable Engineering for Equity (SEE). SEE will be organized around eight learning modules, each focused on a different engineering challenge. Modules will be structured to progressively develop the engineering skills that first-year students should master and will be specifically based on mastery proficiency milestones and outcomes specified by ABET. Hands-on, supportive project work will be paired with contextualized, just-in-time instruction to make sure students have strong mastery of math and science fundamentals and plenty of opportunities to practice, revise, and improve their work. In Year 2, faculty will pilot the one-year SEE program with a sample of students that includes strong representation from our target groups. SEE will enable the GCES to hone its practices, train its faculty, and set up infrastructure to support a fully inclusive, equitable engineering program. The impact of redesigning engineering education around equitable practices on underrepresented students’ sense of engineering identity will be rigorously evaluated. Data and feedback from SEE will help Elizabethton College and GCES faculty redesign their courses to incorporate field-tested best practices. SEE students in the Phase I pilot will receive free tuition and credit for a full year of engineering education; after successfully completing the year, students can continue at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania or another institution of higher education. Project evaluation by a contracted third-party expert will (1) provide information on accountability of the GCES with respect to both fidelity of GCES implementation of grant activities and our stated commitment to equitable impacts, (2) support continuous improvement of work developed in the SEE pilot, and (3) support generation of knowledge about how engineering education can be redesigned for equity, in ways that can be transferred to other campuses. In Phase II, the GCES will begin extension of the model program into a full, four-year engineering program.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.