Fostering Future Engineering Faculty Diversity by Building a Pipeline to Graduate Programs

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 the University of Massachusetts Lowell, a R2 public research university with a high percentage of first-generation undergraduate students. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 24 unique full-time students who will be supported for four years from their junior undergraduate year through the completion of a master's degree or completion of their qualifying exam within a Ph.D. program.

The goal of the project is to create a diverse and competitive pool of students who could become future faculty candidates in engineering by aiding them to explore their interest in these careers and supporting them to prepare and embark on these graduate education pathways. Project activities include group-based mentoring meetings with internal and external faculty, safe space cohort building, job shadowing, individual graduate school application support, positive teaching and research experiences, a curriculum to cultivate pedagogical and content knowledge, and a mentorship program (Entering Research Mentoring Program; ERMP) for first- and second-year graduate students.

The project will also employ podcasting as a way to introduce high school students to STEM careers. This project has the potential to significantly increase the number of STEM graduates from traditionally underrepresented populations in engineering at the graduate level, and strengthen the pipeline of highly qualified diverse candidates entering careers in higher education.

Another important broader impact is the project's strong potential to foster social justice educators with core personal and professional beliefs in diversity and inclusion, which help promote inclusive and equitable environment in higher education to retain a future generation of engineering students.

The intellectual merit goal is to better understand the factors that motivate low-income, high-achieving, underrepresented engineering students to persist in the trajectory to engineering graduate programs and future faculty positions in higher education. The project plans to employ a variety of evidence-based interventions that have been used successfully to support students to achieve their career goals.

The project will determine whether group-based mentoring and safe space cohort building contribute to low income, high achieving analyze the evaluation data collected from a teaching diverse populations course to advance knowledge about how to cultivate social justice educators. In addition, the project will explore the potential of podcasting as a way for scholars to self-express and explore their interest and confidence in pursuing a faculty career.

Lastly, the project will examine whether participation in ERMP results in positive mentoring relationships, professional identity, research and academic skills, and confidence in pursuing faculty careers. Results of this project will be disseminated via presentations at local and national conferences, publications in engineering education journals, a website featuring cohort activities, and podcast episodes targeted to high school students.

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.