2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

An Experience Designed to Onboard New Students into a Multiyear Co-Curricular Program, the Grand Challenges Scholars Program

Presented at Multidisciplinary Engineering Division (MULTI) Best Papers

This paper describes a virtual onboarding experience designed to introduce new students in the Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP) at Arizona State University to their program journey, and its effectiveness at preparing these new students for starting the program. Each student’s journey in this multiyear co-curricular program involves an individualized set of courses and/or experiences to achieve five program outcomes, the GCSP Competencies: Talent, Multidisciplinary, Viable Business/Entrepreneurship, Multicultural, and Social Consciousness. Their experience in the program also includes a series of three courses designed to provide mentorship and support their program progress, as well as opportunities to engage with the community through events and receive financial support. The onboarding experience was designed to efficiently and systematically onboard a large number of new students into the program, accommodating variable program start dates due to the program’s rolling admissions. The goal is to help new students gain a clear understanding of the program requirements, opportunities to achieve the program competencies, what their program journeys could look like, important program processes, and their program support.

In this paper, the details of the design and implementation of the onboarding experience will be described, and its effectiveness will be discussed based on quantitative and qualitative analyses of data collected from a required survey about the onboarding experience. The results from the survey indicate that students felt prepared to start participating in the program and they had a good understanding of the purpose and value of the program, who is there to support them, and opportunities to achieve the competencies after completing the onboarding experience. Students felt that the onboarding experience was well organized, with clear directions, engaging videos, useful questions, and informative visuals. Students also found learning about the opportunities to achieve the competencies and seeing an example four-year student plan particularly helpful.

Authors

Dr. Haolin Zhu Arizona State University [biography]

Dr. Haolin Zhu earned her B.S.E. in Engineering Mechanics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and her Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Cornell University, with a focus on computational solid mechanics. Dr. Zhu is an Associate Teaching Professor of the freshman engineering education team in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU). In this role, she focuses on designing the curriculum and teaching in the freshman engineering program and the mechanical engineering program. She is also the Co-Director of the Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP) at ASU. In this role, she focuses on student support and tracking, curriculum, program requirements, as well as programming for current students in GCSP. Dr. Zhu was also involved in the ASU ProMod project, the Engineering Projects in Community Service program, the Engineering Futures program, the Global Freshman Academy/Earned Admission/Universal Learner Courses Program, and the ASU Kern Project. She was a part of the team that designed a largely team and activity based online Introduction to Engineering course. She has also co-developed two unique MOOCs, Introduction to Engineering and Perspectives on Grand Challenges for Engineering for the Global Freshman Academy/ASU Earned Admission/Universal Learner Courses Program. Her Ph.D. research focused on multi-scale multiphase modeling and numerical analysis of coupled large viscoelastic deformation and fluid transport in swelling porous materials, but she is currently interested in various topics in the field of engineering education, such as innovative teaching pedagogies for increased retention and student motivation; innovations in non-traditional delivery methods, incorporation of the Entrepreneurial Mindset in the engineering curriculum and its impact. She has published over 30 papers and presented at various conferences about her work. She was recognized as an Engineering Unleashed Fellow and won the Fulton Outstanding Lecturer Award for her contributions in Engineering Education.
Amy Trowbridge Arizona State University [biography]

Amy Trowbridge is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University and is co-Director of the Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP) at ASU, recognized by National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Her teaching focuses primarily on first year engineering students, and she is interested in curricular and co-curricular experiences that broaden students’ perspectives and enhance student learning, and the use of digital portfolios for students to showcase and reflect on their experiences. Amy has contributed to the development of an interdisciplinary grand challenges focused course and introduction to engineering course in both in-person and online (MOOC) formats at ASU. She is also actively involved in the ASU Kern project and Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN), focused on students’ development of entrepreneurial mindset. Amy received the national 2019 KEEN Rising Star award from KEEN for her efforts in encouraging students in developing an entrepreneurial mindset. She is also a member of the current interim Executive Committee for the international GCSP Network, and mentors schools to develop GCSPs as part of the GCSP New Programs committee.
Sue Ellen Huffman
Stefani Jenkins Arizona State University

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

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