2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This works-in-progress poster presents early project data on the impact of a cohort-based mentoring approach to supporting S-STEM scholars. cohort-based curricula, and peer mentoring are all strategies used to establish and increase students’ sense of belonging in engineering [20], [21]. Sense-of-belonging is counter to the experience of MMUs, whose enculturation into STEM communities is often characterized by ostracization, exclusion, and microaggression. Our S-STEM approach seeks to increase students’ sense of belonging, self-efficacy, integration into their academic community, and development
of an engineering and computer science identity. These are important for the retention of MMU students both in academic programs and in the profession [22]–[28]. It is important that students believe in their own potential as engineers and computer scientists and feel welcomed into a community of scholars [4], [29], [53].

In this works-in-progress poster, we share year one retention and sense-of-belonging data, which shows that students enrolled in the S-STEM program have an overwhelmingly positive identification with their S-STEM cohort. Additionally, we offer a preliminary analysis of qualitative reflections and narratives from students, which share students’ ongoing commitment to social impact projects as well as the impact of both their cohort and mentoring support systems.