An Innovative Approach to Recruit and Retain Historically Underrepresented Students in Engineering

The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields do not usually attract first generation, low-income, and minority students (such as women, Hispanics, and African American, etc.). There are various ways to increase the number of minority students’ participation in STEM careers, but one of the most frequently utilized means is implementing outreach programs in the community to introduce students in the K-12 system to STEM. This study describes the program developed in the Cal Poly Pomona College of Engineering (CPP CoE) to provide outreach to K-12 students while increasing the retention of the undergraduate engineering students. The program used service learning, along with outreach activities, to give CPP engineering students the opportunity to immerse themselves in the K-12 classroom. CPP students became mentors and teachers of middle and high school students and led the development of STEM activities. The year-long mentorship experience culminated with an evening event at CPP, where CPP engineering students received the K-12 students, their parents, and their teachers for a night of fun STEM workshops and activities. CPP students’ reflections and students’ engagement in the activities for more than a single term suggested that undergraduate students were positively affected in their involvement with the program. K-12 parents and teachers were enthusiastic about the program and were excited to meet with CPP engineering students. The results will be used to expand the program to reach more K-12 students, and it will be the basis for a sustainable outreach program that will allow CPP engineering students to apply their technical knowledge while servicing the community. This paper describes the details of the service learning outreach-retention program designed for CPP engineering students. Background on STEM education Technological innovation and development to satisfy society’s needs and commodities requires a large pool of diverse, creative and well-prepared professionals with backgrounds in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields1. The shortage of students from diverse populations interested in the STEM fields, and the severe academic deficiencies of many minority students entering four-year colleges (due to the K-12 programs’ lack of access to core math and science courses, limited access to high-level math and sciences courses, opportunity gaps in gifted education, retention rates of students of color, among many others)2 has caused a national movement for the creation of programs to support the K-12 education directly or indirectly in the academic preparation of students and teachers. According to Cohen and Deterding “outreach within institutions, across institutions and into curricular reform in K-12 (along with professional development of teachers) is needed to address what is, at its very core, a recruitment problem” (p. 223)3. In the last two decades it has been observed that US universities have been seriously impacted by the lagging behind in STEM education of the K-12 programs. Thus universities have creatively come up with novel ideas to be active participants in motivating and enhancing the K-12 learning experience4. The American Psychological Association fact sheet has reported that there is a correlation between socioeconomic status (SES) and academic development. SES is a measure of the income, occupation and education of the individuals and their families5. It has been reported that students from low-SES households are more likely to have learning challenges, such as disinterest, lack of attention or collaboration, and are more likely to drop out from school or college due to lack of interest or because they don’t feel part of the community or due to financial and personal distress6-8. Universities have acknowledged their responsibility in science and engineering education at the K-12 level, and K-12 outreach activities have become bridges between the universities’ academic programs and research activities and the K-12 community9. Outreach activities engage students and teachers that otherwise would not be engaged or would have a limited exposure to STEM fields. Moreover, outreach activities have been used as one solution to the current US shortage of professionals in engineering and science10. According to the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), service learning has been identified as one of the high-impact teaching and learning practices11. Programs, like Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS), have been created to include service learning activities into the engineering curriculum. Service learning is a well-known and effective pedagogical method that engages learners of diverse backgrounds, especially those of underrepresented backgrounds12-14. The project described in this paper combined the service learning pedagogy with engineering outreach activities to enhance the learning experience of the students enrolled in an engineering course (EGR 299 S course). The objective was to improve the retention of underrepresented engineering students (majority at CPP) by providing them with opportunities to use their technical engineering skills and by providing them with opportunities to work in diverse and multidisciplinary teams (building confidence in their knowledge) in order to build relationships with K-12 students and to motivate the K-12 students to pursue STEM fields. Introduction to CPP engineering programs Cal Poly Pomona is a four-year institution well-known by the diversity of its student population (0.2, 23.6, 3.3, 38.9, 0.1, 19.7, 3.9, 4.4 and 5.7 % of American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific, White, Two or More Races, Unknown, and International Students; respectively). Cal Poly Pomona is conveniently located in the intersection of I-10 and I-57 which confines the campus among little hills giving it the feeling of a semi-rural environment located in the middle of the Los Angeles urbanized area. Due to the historically high quality of the CPP Engineering and Science academic programs and due to the accessible tuition cost, the majority of the CPP students are commuters, and a large majority belong to a low income and/or first generation in college family. Hence, a large portion of the full-time students have full or partial financial aid. The large number of high school students with significant English and Math deficiencies entering CPP academic programs, especially majors in the STEM fields, created an unsustainable resource investment to support the remedial courses. After the economic recession of 2008, many of the CPP academic engineering programs were affected by impaction which resulted in the reduction of number of students admitted. Program impaction increased the admission standards and reduced the number of remedial students admitted. While impaction increased the number of high quality incoming engineering students, the college preparedness of the 12-grade incoming students was not improved. Additionally, students enrolled in engineering programs before impaction that had started in remedial courses or that had math and/or science deficiencies were in disadvantaged positions compared to well-prepared students, which posed student retention challenges15. Students with deficiencies usually take more than 6 years to graduate, if they don’t drop from the engineering major due to the lack of motivation, financial support, and/or self-confidence16. The CPP CoE has always conducted outreach activities to promote engineering majors among K12 schools and community college students in the service area and in the state. Many of the outreach activities have served to engage and retain its own engineering students (i.e., open house, honor’s college day, tours of the college facilities, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers –SHPEand Society of Women Engineers-SWEoutreach events, among others). However, after 2008 many new and novel efforts were undertaken in the CPP CoE to increase the college preparedness of the K-12 community, to increase the retention of the CPP engineering students, and to increase the student diversity, especially the number of female students enrolled in engineering programs. In 2013, the CPP CoE was supported by the Kellogg Foundation Endowment Program to launch the project titled: An Innovative Approach to Recruit and Retain Historically Underrepresented Students in Engineering. The project described here was one of the three different programs launched in the CPP CoE in Fall 2013 that had the overall objectives of recruiting high quality K-12 students and increasing retention of CPP underrepresented engineering students while enhancing the STEM education of the K-12 academic programs. This paper describes the work done for the program “Hispanics in Engineering” via a Service Learning Course and the E-Girl event. “Hispanics in Engineering” program model The “Hispanics in Engineering” program was developed with two different mutually supporting components. The program components were designed to sustain the overall objective of retaining underrepresented CPP engineering students and to enhance the K-12 student learning experience. However, an inherent and deep connection to the learners’ community needs was infused to motivate, engage and increase self-confidence in both CPP engineering and K-12 students. Both program components are shown in Figure 1 and are described in detail below.