2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Context
In 2022, an S-STEM project, titled Emerge: Preparing Students for an Innovative Future (Emerge Scholars Program) was proposed to NSF to try to answer one of the highest national priorities in STEM education, to increase the population of academically talented students from low-income, diverse backgrounds who graduate with an associate of science (A.S.) in engineering technology (advanced manufacturing specialization), and contribute to the American innovation economy as scientists, technicians, and/or engineers. This program was accepted in order to help answer this as well as to address a national need to increase affordable pathways from high school to two-year, then four-year institutions of higher education (IHE) or into STEM careers, improve educational equity, expand access to higher education (particularly among underrepresented minority (URM) populations, increase the post-secondary credential-attainment levels of students and the community, and raise social mobility.

Research Question
The main contribution to the literature of the Emerge Schlars Program is the addressing of the following research question: To what extent do the collective STEM high-impact practices operating in the context of Guided Pathways framework: (a) enhance the successful implementation of Guided Pathways supports? and (b) contribute to success of low-income, rural, underrepresented minority students in two-year mechatronics programs? The study will control for mediating effects of race and first generation by comparing our cohort of STEM scholars to current non-S-STEM-eligible mechatronics students in addition to historical data across the college.

Aims
The objectives of the Emerge Scholars Program include: (1) The recruitment of 40 students from three local counties (six area high schools that have a large proportion of low-income underrepresented students) into the engineering technology AS program and award annual scholarships; (2) Retain 80% (32 of 40) of scholars from the first to second year of their major; (3) Graduate 75% (30 of 40) of Pell-eligible, degree-seeking Emerge Scholars retained from fall-to-fall within 150% time (40 total scholars will graduate); (4) 100% of Emerge Scholar graduates transfer to mechatronic-related majors in four-year institutions or enter into mechatronics-related careers; and (5) By the end of the project period, generate knowledge on the impact of a guided-pathways approach to improving student success for academically talented students from low-income, URM backgrounds in community college mechatronics programs.

Conclusions and Significance
As the first cohort of students has only just been enrolled in the Fall 2023 semester, the research is only just beginning. It is hoped that the Emerge Scholars Program will broaden participation in mechatronics by improving scholars’ retention, graduation, and transfer rates in mechatronics majors. The high-quality, evidence-based activities implemented will be uniformly assessed and evaluated, producing new, inherent scalable information that will immediately apply to community colleges nationally. Upon dissemination, results are expected to support reform and a much-needed paradigm shift in higher education for two-year IHEs seeking to better serve the needs of low-income, URM, and rural students in STEM fields.