2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) students in engineering graduate programs is vital to developing engineering diversity. In the United States, the enrollment of domestic Black or African American and Hispanic students in doctoral programs is low (4.3% and 8.4%, respectively) compared to other races [1]. These percentages are even far less than their representation within the US population, 13.6%, and 18.6%, respectively [2]. Further, it has been shown that mentoring programs focused on URM undergraduate students positively impact their academic performance and retention [3]. However, an outstanding question is whether mentoring can help prepare URM undergraduate students for graduate school and whether mentoring of prospective graduate students (undergrad mentees) by current graduate students can help increase feelings of belonging for the graduate student mentors. This research study aims to address these questions through the lens of the community-driven mentoring circle structure of the GradTrack Scholars program [4].

GradTrack is a virtual mentorship program that strives to build an inclusive and supportive community geared toward increasing the success of undergraduate and graduate URM engineering students who are excited about Graduate Education [4]. The program has a unique online mentoring circle structure, pairing 2 graduate student mentors with 4-6 URM undergraduate student mentees from across the US. The program was established and ran a pilot in 2021. It completed its second year in Fall 2022, recording an increase in interest and growth of both graduate mentors and undergraduate mentees. Building upon the success of the pilot year of the program, this study formally examines the effectiveness of the GradTrack program in its second year.

Specifically, this study aims to address two questions: A) Does the GradTrack Scholars Program prepare participating undergraduate students for graduate school? and B) Does GradTrack assist in the professional development and sense of belonging for graduate student mentors? To evaluate these questions, this research paper uses pre- and post-event surveys and a focus group of mentors from the 2022 GradTrack cohort. This paper will also discuss modifications made between the first two years of the program. The results of this assessment and ideas for implementation across other institutions will be presented.