2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 87: Work in Progress: The 2TO4 Project - Facilitated Transition from 2-Year to 4-Year Electrical and Computer Engineering Studies

Presented at Electrical and Computer Engineering Division (ECE) Poster Session

The XXX is a nonprofit organization that enables collective efforts through equitable partnerships between its 21 MSI members, 14 PWI members and 7 corporate members. The XXX 2TO4 Project builds on its Pathways to Success program to support students who begin their studies at a community college or other 2-year institution by providing financial support (scholarships, internships, academic year stipends), mentoring and other personalized transition support, professional guidance, and community engagement.
The 2TO4 network of community colleges (CCs) consists of 20 sub-networks built around the 20 4-year HBCUs, HSIs and TCUs that form most of the core membership of XXX. Generally, a small number (1-3) of CCs located near a core member educate a few students who transfer to the local 4-year MSI ECE program. Some XXX core members have well-developed relationships with their local CCs and see much larger numbers of transfer students. The vision of 2TO4 is to double the total number of students following this pathway to their BS degree in ECE by sharing promising practices and providing robust transition support infrastructure and increased financial support for those CC students who should have MSIs on their radar as they complete their associate degrees. Participating CCs become members of XXX and engage in equitable partnerships with 4-year MSIs and PWIs, industry and DoD labs to implement the various building blocks of 2TO4.
During the first year of this multi-year effort, a base version of 2TO4 was created. Program leadership connected with DoDSTEM and the other CC programs it funds, defining the parameters of 2TO4 1.0 (formalizing the relationship between MSI core members and their key local CCs), and began working through institutional challenges with the 60+ program partners. Regular meetings were scheduled, and a general communication infrastructure was rolled out. The first cohort of more than two dozen student participants was selected along with individual faculty and staff who create and deliver student support resources. A key element of 2TO4 is students supporting other students. Since all students were new to the program, a significant fraction of the first cohort includes students who have already transferred to their chosen 4-year school. Their experiences provide valuable insights on what works and what does not, and their stories are well received by their more junior peers. During the second year of the project, both the number of participating students is increasing substantially, and the support infrastructure and programs are expanding. In addition, project resources are being actively made available to facilitate the success of all transfer students at XXX core MSI members.
In this first project phase, assessment is focused on the extent to which each programmatic component is implemented with fidelity and the program has built the necessary capacity to support students. Formative feedback from each participant is collected and student progress is tracked. Key to this stage of the project is building trust and equitable partnerships, along with making necessary programmatic changes. There is a lot for each partner to learn from the other program partners.

Authors

Dr. Kenneth A Connor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4216-763X Inclusive Engineering Consortium & Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [biography]

Kenneth Connor is Program Officer at the Inclusive Engineering Consortium (IEC), whose mission is to enable MSI ECE programs to produce more and better prepared graduates from groups that have been historically underrepresented in ECE careers. He is also an emeritus professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering (ECSE) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where he taught courses on electromagnetics, electronics and instrumentation, plasma physics, electric power, and general engineering. His research involves plasma physics, electromagnetics, photonics, biomedical sensors, engineering education, diversity in the engineering workforce, and technology enhanced learning. He learned problem solving from his father (who ran a gray iron foundry), his mother (a nurse) and grandparents (dairy farmers). He has had the great good fortune to always work with amazing people, most recently the members and leadership of the IEC from HBCU, HSI, and TCU ECE programs and the faculty, staff and students of the Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications (LESA) ERC, where he was Education Director until his retirement in 2018. He was RPI ECSE Department Head from 2001 to 2008 and served on the board of the ECE Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) from 2003 to 2008. He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE.
Dr. Mohamed F. Chouikha Prairie View A&M University [biography]

Dr. Mohamed Chouikha is a professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Howard University. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Coloradoâ€“Boulder. Dr. Chouikhaâ€™s research inte
Prof. Miguel Velez-Reyes http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6983-7250 University of Texas at El Paso [biography]

Dr. Miguel Velez-Reyes is the George W. Edwards/El Paso Electric Distinguished Professor in Engineering and Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Dr. Velez-Reyes is a first generation in college student who received the BSEE degree from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM), in 1985, and the MSEE, the Electrical Eng. D., and the PhD degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1988, 1988, and 1992 respectively. He is a leading researcher and educator in multi/hyperspectral remote sensing, and sensor and signal analytics for non-intrusive monitoring. His work is presented in over 160 publications in journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings, and has supervised over 55 post-doctoral, doctoral and master students. Dr. Velez-Reyes has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator in grants and contracts totaling over $25M. He chairs the SPIE Conference on Algorithms, Technologies and Applications for Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imaging. His technical achievements and service to the community have been recognized with the distinction of Fellow of SPIE (The International Society for Optics and Photonics) for his contributions to hyperspectral image processing, and Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Puerto Rico. In 1997, he was one of 60 recipients from across the United States and its territories of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House. He received the IEEE Walter Fee Outstanding Young Engineer Award in 1999. In addition to being ECE department chair, he is engaged in important leadership roles as UTEP Campus Coordinator for the NOAA Center for Earth Systems Science and Remote Sensing Technology led by City College of New York and was interim director of the UTEP Regional Cyber for Energy Security Center. He was a member of the faculty at the Electrical and Computer Engineering in the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM) from 1992 to 2012. He was the Founding Director of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM) Institute for Research in Integrative Systems and Engineering (IRISE) and was Associate Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS) led by Northeastern University. He was also UPRM campus coordinator for the Center for Power Electronic Systems (CPES) a NSF ERC led by Virginia Tech. He was director of the UPRM Tropical Center for Earth and Space Studies (TCESS), a NASA University Research Center, and Director of the UPRM Laboratory for Applied Remote Sensing and Image Processing (LARSIP). Dr. Velez-Reyes is a strong advocate on promoting access to excellent higher education to all students particularly those from socioeconomically disadvantage backgrounds and underrepresented populations. He is a board member of the Inclusive Engineering Consortium and is actively engaged in initiatives that promote diversity equity and inclusion in engineering education. He has held faculty research-internship positions with Air Force Research Laboratories, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Furthermore, he is a member of the Eta Kappa Nu, Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi, and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies. He is a life member of SHPE and SACNAS, and Senior Member of IEEE. He is a member of ASEE, and AGU.
Dr. Barry J. Sullivan Electrical & Computer Engineering Department Heads Assn [biography]

Barry J. Sullivan is Director of Program Development for the Inclusive Engineering Consortium. His 40-year career includes significant experience as a researcher, educator, and executive in industry, academia, and the non-profit sector. He has developed
Dr. Bruk T Berhane Florida International University [biography]

Dr. Bruk T. Berhane received his bachelorâ€™s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland in 2003. He then completed a masterâ€™s degree in engineering management at George Washington University in 2007. In 2016, he earned a Ph
Michelle Klein Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. Heads Assoc.
Dr. Kathy Ann Gullie [biography]

Gullie Consultants Services LLC,
Owner, Dr. Kathy A. Gullie Ph.D.
Dr. Kathy Gullie and her associates at Gullie Consultant Services LLC have been in education, assessment, program development and evaluation in New York State for over 30 years. A form
Milford Muskett

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