2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Kickstarting an Engineering Success Center at a Hispanic Serving Institute

Presented at Multidisciplinary Engineering Division (MULTI) Technical Session 2

XXX University (XXXX) is a Hispanic Serving Institute (HSI) and a Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI) located in the diverse X community. As part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) HSI Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) grant, the Engineering Success Center (ESC) was established in late 2021. XXXX’s School of Engineering is home to 1,400 undergraduate students of which 38% are underrepresented minorities (URMs) and 18% female. Surveys conducted through Institutional programs showed that only 14% of students attained a full-time position prior to graduation. Within this context, the ESC was created to build capacity in the school of engineering by increasing academic and career development services. Through expanding these critical services, the ESC aims to address challenges of retention, graduation rates, and transition into the workforce. The establishment of the ESC was met with the additional challenge of developing its services during the COVID-19 pandemic. At XXXX, through Spring 2022, there were still a significant percentage of courses being taught via remote modality. Students were geographically spread out yet eager to be part of a school community once again. The ESC initiated several services in the first semester including: tutoring, academic excellence workshops, and strategies for success seminars. This paper will share the experience of the Center’s first year. Communication was a huge component of the ESC’s effort due to the wide distribution of students across learning modality and physical location. Discussions of effective means of student engagement will be discussed as well as the impact of attendance on presentations/seminars due to remote offerings. Tutoring was offered as a hybrid option to broaden the range of students who could participate and engage with the service. Emphasis in this paper is placed on the lessons learned and the external evaluation conducted at the end of the Center’s first semester.

Authors

Dr. Jenna Wong, P.E. San Francisco State University [biography]

Dr. Wong is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Her research interests focus on traditional and sustainable structural resilience and engineering education. Her doctorate research at UC Berkeley investigated the applicability of seismic isolation and supplemental viscous damping to nuclear power plants with focus on seismic resilience and safety. After receiving her PhD, Dr. Wong began a post-doctoral fellowship at Lawrence National Laboratory focusing on computational analysis for nonlinear seismic analysis of Department of Energy nuclear facilities and systems. After joining SFSU in 2016, she established an active research lab at SFSU with a diverse group of undergraduate and Master's level students. For her engineering education research, she is interested in exploring how to use technology such as virtual reality and 3D printing to enhance student engagement. She is an active member of ASCE, ASEE, and SEAONC.
Dr. Zhaoshuo Jiang http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-4931-1622 San Francisco State University [biography]

Zhaoshuo Jiang graduated from the University of Connecticut with a Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering. Before joining San Francisco State University as an assistant professor, he worked as a structural engineering professional at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Dr. Robert Petrulis [biography]

Dr. Petrulis is an independent consultant specializing in education-related project evaluation and research. He is based in Columbia, South Carolina.
Dr. Wenshen Pong, P.E. San Francisco State University [biography]

Wenshen Pong received his Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He joined the School of Engineering at San Francisco State University in 1998. He teaches courses in Civil/Structural Engineering. He has received many grants from NSF, Department of Education and NASA.
Dr. Xiaorong Zhang San Francisco State University [biography]

Xiaorong Zhang received the B.S. degree in computer science from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, in 2006, the M.S. and the Ph.D. degrees in computer engineering from University of Rhode Island, Kingston, in 2009 and 2013 respectivel
Dr. David Quintero http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3400-9535 San Francisco State University [biography]

Dr. David Quintero received B.S. degree from Texas A&M University, a M.S. degree from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas all in mechanical engineering. He is now an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at San Francisco State University representing as a Hispanic-Serving Institution with research focus on design and control of wearable robotic systems, and engineering education in the field areas of mechatronics/robotics.
Fatemeh Khalkhal San Francisco State University [biography]

Dr. Khalkhal is an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at San Francisco State University (a primarily undergraduate and Hispanic-serving Institution). Her research experience is in developing structure-property relationships in complex fluids and polymer composites, broadening the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering, and understanding the relationship between teamwork experience and team disagreements in the formation of engineering identity among diverse students.
Dr. Yiyi Wang San Francisco State University [biography]

Yiyi Wang is an assistant professor of civil engineering at San Francisco State University. In addition to engineering education, her research also focuses on the nexus between mapping, information technology, and transportation and has published in Accident Analysis & Prevention, Journal of Transportation Geography, and Annuals of Regional Science. She served on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) ABJ80 Statistical Analysis committee and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) panel. She advises the student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) at SFSU.

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