2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Work-in-Progress: A Strengths Approach Centering Lived Experiences of Low-Income Students in an S-STEM Program

This work-in-progress paper explores the integration and centering of the lived experiences of low-income students into an existing Strengths-Based Approach in an NSF scholarship and mentoring program. Our current NSF S-STEM award ENGAGE (Engineering Neighbors: Gaining Access, Growing Engineers) (NSF DUE 1834128, 1834154) is a partnership between a public, primarily undergraduate, highly-selective, B.S.-granting institution in California and two California Community Colleges designed to support low-income, academically talented engineering and computer science students. In ENGAGE, we utilize an assets-based framework in student, mentor, and project team training, professional development workshops, and in program design and implementation. Our Strengths-Based Approach (SBA) utilizes Gallup’s Clifton Strengths assessment to identify the assets that students bring to their educational journeys. However, many implementations of assets-based approaches (including Gallup) do not attend to the varied lived experiences of students, which can shape student development and utilization of their strengths. For example, how has the experience of being a low-income student contributed to or possibly hindered ENGAGE student development and utilization of their strengths? Financial instability may impact students' ability to fully engage with strengths-based development. In our initial development and implementation of SBA, mentors and mentees engaged in training activities focused on exploring differences in lived experiences related to a wide variety of identities/factors designed to encourage participants to critically examine their pathways and positionality in higher education. However, we did not focus on what the students in our program had in common: the lived experience of being low-income in the Central Coast of California. Thus, moving forward in the collaboration, we are redeveloping our SBA to center attention to the experience of being a low-income student in one of the most expensive parts of the country and plan to start our strengths-based work with new students with this focus.

Authors

Dr. Jane L. Lehr California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo [biography]

Jane Lehr is a Professor in Ethnic Studies and Women's and Gender Studies and Director of the Office of Student Research at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She is affiliated faculty in Computer Science & Software Engineering.
Dr. Daniel Almeida http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-4679-7185 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo [biography]

Dr. Daniel Almeida is an Associate Professor in Higher Education Counseling/Student Affairs at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He is Lead Principal Investigator for the NSF-funded California State University Alliance for Graduate
Prof. Dominic J Dal Bello http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8002-3226 Allan Hancock College [biography]

Dom Dal Bello is Professor of Engineering at Allan Hancock College (AHC), a California community college between UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. At AHC, he is Department Chair of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty Advisor of MESA (the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement Program), has served as Principal/Co-Principal Investigator of several National Science Foundation projects (S-STEM, LSAMP, IUSE). In ASEE, he is chair of the Two-Year College Division, and Vice-Chair/Community Colleges of the Pacific Southwest Section. He received the Outstanding Teaching Award for the ASEE/PSW Section in 2022.
Eva Schiorring STEMEVAL [biography]

Eva Schiorring has almost two decades of experience in research and evaluation and special knowledge about STEM education in community colleges and four-year institutions. She presently serves as the external evaluator for four NSF-funded projects. The
Dr. Fred W DePiero Hancock College [biography]

Dr. Fred DePiero earned his BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering at Michigan State University. After which he worked at Oak Ridge National Lab in the areas of robotics and machine vision. He then earned his PhD, also in EE, from the University of Tennessee. In 1996 he moved to San Luis Obispo, CA and joined the faculty of Cal Poly in the EE Department. After teaching in EE and then 10 years of service as an Associate Dean, Fred rejoined the faculty and then joined the Computer Engineering Department. His areas of interest have branched out to include web applications for teaching and learning, as well as new approaches to digital-to-analog converters with first and second order holds. Fred retired from Cal Poly in 2024 and now teaches at Hancock College. Development of his CATE system continues (the Circuit Analysis Tool for Education).
Dr. Lizabeth L Thompson P.E. California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo [biography]

Dr. Lizabeth Thompson is the Director of General Engineering and a professor in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. She has been at Cal Poly for 32 years and has held various positions on campus including Co-Director of Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies, Director of Women’s Engineering Programs, and CENG Interim Associate Dean. Although she has taught over 25 different courses, she currently teaches Financial Decision making, First Year engineering, Senior Project, and Change Management. Her research is in Engineering Education where she has received $11.8 million of funding from NSF as either PI or Co-PI. She researches equitable classroom practices, integrated learning, and institutional change. She spent the 2019-2020 academic year at Cal State LA.
Stephen R. Beard California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Christine L Reed Allan Hancock College
Tina Cheuk http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7841-2492 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

For those interested in:

1st Generation
2 Year Institution
Broadening Participation in Engineering and Engineering Technology
computer science
engineering
Socio-Economic Status
transfer
undergraduate