This engineering education research award to Norfolk State University, in partnership with Central Virginia Community College, Northern Virginia Community College, Thomas Nelson Community College, and Tidewater Community College will support research to pilot the establishment of an innovative program to leverage the community college pathway into the engineering profession. Students completing a 2+3 community college to university program would receive three post-secondary degrees: the associate degree in engineering, the bachelor of science in engineering, and the master of science in engineering. This pilot program will target two primary audiences. First, the program will be tailored and marketed to military veterans who wish to complete their educational training using support from the newly implemented Post 9/11 GI-Bill program. Second, the program will be marketed to high school students through a popular team-based robotics program that has a good record of attracting students into engineering. Project activities are organized into five general categories: curricular coherence; academic enrichment; mentoring, advising, and support services; community building and networking; and assessment and evaluation. Planning phase activities will explore strategies that have been identified in prior studies on military students and on community college pathways into engineering as a guide for the program design. The project team will consider methods to better synchronize curricular and course offerings. and will work to develop institutionalized assessment mechanisms that can be used to collect useful statistics on student performance and success factors. The final project report will include an overview of the student and program performance, and it will outline strategies for effective dissemination to other community college and four-year campuses.
Analogous to the three plus two undergraduate programs that bridge physics, math, and science students attending liberal arts universities into an engineering discipline, this program is expected to be a model for attracting a larger pool of students into the engineering profession. It will provide models for alternate pathways that can increase the number and diversity of engineering graduates needed for a competitive national workforce.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Collaborative Research: Two + Three Community College to Graduate Engineering Degree Programs effort has completed its pilot phase and has now implemented its program phase. Currently known as T-CUP, for Two + Three Community College to University Programs Project, the effort was initially implemented as a special project of the Engineering Education Centers Division of NSF following a workshop on how to attract veterans attending school in the Post 9-11 GI-Bill. The project team, led by Optical and Electronics Engineering faculty at Norfolk State University, has established partnerships with six community college campuses, Thomas Nelson Community College, Tidewater Community College, John Tyler Community College, Northern Virginia Community College, Central Virginia Community College, and the College of Southern Maryland. Most recently, Eastern Shore Community College has expressed a strong interest in joining the effort and is expected to complete program-level agreements with Engineering and Computer Science faculty by the end of the 2012 academic year. The T-CUP team recently expanded into a newly established In-VETS (Invest Now in Veteran Education and Training in STEM) Center for Academic Excellence. Under the In-VETS name, a symposium to identify effective strategies to aid veterans who wish to transition into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers was held. Over sixty private and public officials along with college faculty and administrators came together to generate innovative ideas. Event sponsors included the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Zeltech, Corporation of Hampton, VA. The attendees applauded the T-CUP effort and agreed that the T-CUP is an ideal platform to support the broader objective to train veterans for STEM careers. In terms of impact on students, the T-CUP effort began supporting students in fall 2011. In year one, six T-CUP scholars were located on the Norfolk State, Thomas Nelson Community College, and Northern Virginia Community College campuses. The T-CUP community has grown to now include nine scholars, and the team hopes to maintain steady growth in student participation over the next five years. In 2011, NSU received a grant through the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (S-STEM) program to provide financial support to academically talented and financially needy T-CUP participants. The $600,000 grant allows financial support for veterans beyond the limits associated with the Post 9-11 GI-Bill requirements, or to reach out to the non-military community. Presently, 40% of the T-CUP scholars are military veterans, and the veteran representation is expected to increase with new In-VETS Center initiative. Steady growth is expected over the next five years. The first T-CUP scholar to complete the Associate of Science in Engineering degree will occur in fall 2012. Veteran student, Craig Turczynski (TNCC), will then continue his studies in the Optical Engineering program. Two more scholars will complete their AS degree in May 2013. The first cohort to compete the Bachelor of Science degree will occur in May 2014. Beyond the impact on student matriculation and retention, and the launch of the In-VETS-Ting effort, T-CUP established the Tea Break newsletter (available at www.nsu.edu/tcup) to promote the program to community college and military personnel. The Tea Break is completely produced by the T-CUP scholars and mentors. The newsletter is a vehicle for engaging the students, and it provides a forum that encourages creativity and a vehicle to express their concerns about modern issues with themes related to technology and its societal impact. T-CUP has rejuvenated the connection between Norfolk State and a number of community college campuses in several ways. A pilot dual enrollment program will begin in fall 2013 with reverse transfer options to allow completion of the final associate degree courses using NSU courses. T-CUP also launched an online professional development seminar series in fall 2012 with broadcasts available to anyone with internet access. This allows the group to manage a connection with scholars across the full community. Given the significant role that faculty traditionally play in transfer student choices, the heightened awareness of the relatively young engineering programs at NSU by community college faculty and administrators across Virginia is viewed as one of the most significant findings of the T-CUP project. Aggressive planning and recruiting activities completed in the pilot phase led to close connections between Engineering faculty at NSU and faculty across the six targeted campuses. These departments represent more than 750 students that have already entered the pipeline toward an engineering degree. With the groundwork that has been established under T-CUP, and the roll-out of T-CUP S-TEM funding, the In-VETS-Ting Center, and the dual-enrollment pilot, NSU is poised to experience significant increases in STEM applications and enrollment, followed by increased production of graduates with master of science degrees in STEM disciplines.
