Preparing Academically Talented Students with Financial Need to be the Next Generation of Engineering Professionals by Fostering Innovation and Leadership Skills

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need in the College of Engineering at North Carolina A&T State University. An HBCU, NC A&T is the largest producer of African-American undergraduate engineers and fifth in the nation for the percentage of undergraduate women engineering graduates. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund four-year scholarships to 22 students who are pursuing one of nine undergraduate engineering programs in the College of Engineering. These include architectural, bio(medical), biological, civil, chemical, computer, electrical, industrial & systems, and mechanical engineering, and computer science. The project will expand the current pipeline of students with a focus on rural areas. A structured process will develop innovation and leadership in students beginning in the early stages of their academic careers. Cohort-based creative learning experiences will connect to the nationally recognized Engineering Grand Challenges Scholars Program and leadership development. Authentic experiential learning will be promoted through mentoring and interdisciplinary experiences. The project will provide training in innovation and leadership and will encourage global and cross-cultural perspectives. It will also foster the development of social consciousness through service learning. An Engineering Leadership belt recognition system will be formalized and extended to impact a broad range of students at NC A&T and support other funded student development efforts. Coupled with the national trend in engineering colleges toward innovation and entrepreneurship, this project has the potential to develop leaders and broadly introduce a shared core leadership competency to students nationally.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This combination of innovation and leadership is expected to promote academic motivation and performance. It is also expected to stimulate entrepreneurship knowledge and interest in socially relevant solutions. This premise is rooted in published research regarding under-served populations as well as nationally changing student personas. An adaptable model termed 'Learn-Do-Lead' will be structured and evaluated. The model will facilitate the execution of any student growth initiative, in our case innovation, within a consistent leadership development context. The project will strive to identify the content and pedagogy that will most impact innovation and leadership. It also seeks to understand impact on student performance, motivation, and entrepreneurial knowledge, as well as assess institutional integration methods for sustainability. Results will be disseminated through professional conferences and engineering education professional journals, as well as workshops, seminars, and other training opportunities. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.