2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

With a project built on the Model of Co-Curricular Support for Undergraduate Engineering Students[1], in collaboration with three partnering community colleges was awarded a Multi-Institutional Track 3 S-STEM Grant (Grant number: ) in January 2020. The intention of the project was to recruit 2 cohorts of scholars with 40 students each. One cohort was to start their pursuit of an engineering degree in Fall 2020 and the other in Fall 2021. Each cohort was to be comprised of 20 students who started at as freshmen and 20 students who intended to get an associate’s degree from one of the partnering community colleges and transfer to a university to complete the BS in engineering. Despite some early challenges in recruiting students and implementing planned programs due to the Covid-19 pandemic, three cohorts of low-income students have been recruited and supported by scholarships valued at up to $10,000 per year. In addition to scholarship support, various other support mechanisms have been implemented including a week-long summer bridge program for incoming students, a peer mentoring program, a textbook lending library, faculty mentoring, and various collaborative programs involving career speakers, design challenges, and professional development opportunities. With the first cohort of students now entering their senior year and several community college students having already transferred to the university, this paper discusses the recruitment and retention of scholars, details of program activities, and the progress scholars have made towards an engineering degree. This paper also draws comparisons between the scholar cohorts and all students entering the engineering program in the same semester in order to identify differences in GPA and retention.