Collaborative Planning for a Scholarship Program to Create a Bridge from Community College to Engineering and Research

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 San Diego State University (SDSU), a Hispanic Serving Institution, partnering with Imperial Valley College (IVC), also a Hispanic Serving Institution. Over its one-year duration, investigators at these two institutions will develop plans to fund students who are pursuing associate’s, bachelor’s, and graduate degrees in electrical, computer, and cyber-physical systems engineering disciplines.

The eventual goal is to provide 200 scholarships to eligible students. The project will build on prior work implementing effective support for underrepresented students in STEM, providing additional insights within the context of a preliminary needs assessment, and evaluation of the pilot activities as a whole. Based on this collaborative planning an anticipated Track 3 project will propose to study the impact of new engineering degrees on local low-income students.

The project would focus on low-income students and their intersections with other historically underrepresented populations in STEM fields, particularly Hispanic and first-generation students. Collaboration among SDSU and IVC faculty and program staff will provide the additional supports that these students need to persist in STEM, including cohort building, faculty mentorship, near-peer role models, and networking opportunities.

The project will lead to increased opportunities for students with the greatest need, ultimately leading to increased diversity within the STEM workforce.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The vision for this project is to create a cohesive plan towards a Track 3 proposal that will support eligible students at the partner institutions. To achieve this vision, the project will have three core objectives: (a) identifying the senior personnel and offices to contribute to the Track 3 proposal; (b) building effective collaborations to complete the needs assessment, articulation agreements, and scholarship targets; and (c) developing a future Track 3 proposal.

The project will use pilot activities including cohort building, transfer and graduate school preparation, and participation in discipline-specific conferences to gather data and evidence for developing interventions to support scholars. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of academically talented, low-income 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.