2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Identifying Barriers to Recruiting Low-Income Students into Engineering Master’s Programs

Presented at Graduate Studies Division (GSD) Technical Session 1: Recruitment and Support in Engineering Graduate Programs

The purpose of this paper is to present lessons learned from a recently established NSF S-STEM program focused on creating pathways to master’s degrees for low-income engineering students. This population is particularly interesting, because students from income backgrounds who have earned bachelor’s degrees may be eager to enter the engineering workforce. However, in many engineering disciplines, individuals have more earning potential and career trajectory options with a master’s degree. In this paper, we identify several categories of barriers and lessons learned to launching an S-STEM focused on graduate students at a large R1 public institution that may be useful to other such programs. These include discussions on recruitment of this specialized population of students into graduate school, especially those from other institutions, can be difficult because i) there are structural and legal barriers to accessing financial information about students to identify low-income students and ii) smaller institutions may not have the student support resources to effectively prepare undergraduate students for future research-based advanced degrees in engineering at large universities. By formalizing the issues facing student-centric graduate education and providing some context for how our program is overcoming these barriers, more stakeholders can be aware of barriers that impede broadening participation in graduate-level engineering education to accelerate progress in similar initiatives.

Authors

Dr. Catherine G. P. Berdanier http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3271-4836 Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Tonya L. Peeples http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-0721-9622 Pennsylvania State University [biography]

Professor Tonya Peeples joined the Penn State College of Engineering in August of 2018, as the Inaugural Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion and Professor of Chemical Engineering. Prior to joining Penn State she worked at the University of Iowa and i
Dr. Catherine L. Cohan Pennsylvania State University [biography]

Catherine Cohan, Ph.D. has been a research psychologist for over 20 years. Her areas of expertise include engineering education, retention of underrepresented students, measurement, and assessment. She is currently an Assistant Research Professor and coordinates the Sustainable Bridges NSF IUSE project (Peter Butler, PI). Previously, she was the project coordinator the the Toys'n MORE NSF STEP project (Renata Engel, PI).
Dr. Julio Urbina http://orcid.org/https://0000-0001-6281-4905 Pennsylvania State University [biography]

JULIO V. URBINA, Ph.D. is a Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Julio Urbina received his BSEE degree from Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria, Lima, Peru, in 1990, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1996 and 2002, respectively. He has worked at Jicamarca Radio Observatory, Arecibo Observatory, and University of Arkansas. Dr. Urbina’s research has used radio and radar technologies to study the Earth’s middle and upper atmosphere. He conducts research in RF and Microwaves, digital systems and space instrumentation, cognitive radars, software-defined radio and radars, sensors, acquisition, drones, UAVs, harmonic radars, reconfigurable instrumentation, meteor radio science, radio wave propagation, space engineering, remote sensing, and radar studies of the ionosphere. In 2011, Dr. Urbina received the National Science Foundation CAREER award for his research on Cognitive Radar systems to study plasma instabilities. Dr. Urbina has received numerous federal grants for studies related to mentoring low-income undergraduate and graduate students, radar remote sensing of the Earth, satellite systems, wirelessly networks, ground and space instrumentation and observations, and tracking pollinators. His educational research interests include effective teaching techniques for enhancing engineering education, global engineering and international perspectives, thinking and working in multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary ways, cyberlearning and cyber-environments, service and experiential learning, mentoring, peer-mentoring, teaming and collaborative learning.
Dr. Cynthia Howard-Reed http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9449-2795 Pennsylvania State University [biography]

Cindy Howard Reed is the Assistant Director for Student Research and Graduate Equity and an Assistant Teaching Professor in the College of Engineering at Penn State. She has a MS in Environmental Health Engineering and PhD in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.

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