The authors describe three initiatives designed to increase the academic achievement and retention of historically underrepresented students (including females and underrepresented students of color) in engineering.
In recognition of the critical need for an increased and diverse STEM workforce within the State of Michigan, the University of Michigan launched the Michigan STEM (M-STEM) Academy in the College of Engineering in the summer of 2008. Based on the successful and nationally recognized Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland-BaltimoreCounty, M-STEM identifies talented diverse incoming engineering students with interest in STEM fields who, for reasons of socioeconomic class, first generation college student status, race, gender, or lack of high school rigor might not be successful in pursuing a Michigan STEM degree. M-STEM provides these students with a highly coordinated support system during the critical transition years between high school graduation and the declaration of a STEM concentration by the junior undergraduate year. Programmatic components and assessment of the first year will be discussed.
Research indicates that under-represented students of color, especially Latino/a and African American students, and women (hereafter collectively referred to as URS) do not enter in the engineering disciplines in numbers commensurate with their enrollments in other courses of study within the University. In addition, some of the URS who initially enroll in freshman-level engineering courses fail to persist in the discipline. The challenge, therefore, is to determine what changes in the climate and/or engineering curriculum might encourage greater numbers of URS to enroll and persist. The goal of this project is to establish an inventory of student retention data for URS in engineering at the University of Michigan to determine the likelihood of persistence based on an evaluation of student intentions upon enrollment, deliberateness of course choices and perceptions of the first year experience. The objective is to follow the trajectories of students based upon their initial choices and intentions and to seek patterns of difference in female and under-represented minority students. This work-in-progress presents a summary of the initial findings of this investigation.
North and associate research scientist in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. In addition, she actively pursues research in engineering education and assists other faculty in their scholarly projects. She also is past Chair of the Educational Research and Methods Division of American Society of Engineering Education and guest co-editor for a special issue of the International Journal of Engineering Education on applications of engineering education research.
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