| NSF Org: |
EEC Division of Engineering Education and Centers |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 12, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 25, 2021 |
| Award Number: | 1649355 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Christine Grant
EEC Division of Engineering Education and Centers ENG Directorate for Engineering |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | November 30, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $294,495.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $353,294.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2019 = $58,799.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
205 DAINGERFIELD RD ALEXANDRIA VA US 22314-2833 (703)549-2207 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
205 Daingerfield Road Alexandria VA US 22314-2833 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES, PAESMEM Pres Awrds Excell Ment, EDA-Eng Diversity Activities |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 04001516DB NSF Education & Human Resource |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
Jobs are growing most rapidly in areas that require STEM knowledge, causing business leaders to seek skilled American workers now and in the near future. Increase in the number of students pursuing engineering degrees is taking place but the percentages of underrepresented students in the engineering pipeline remains low. To address the challenge of increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering, the National Society of Black Engineers, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers have formed the 50K Coalition, a collaborative of over 40 organizations committed to increasing the number of bachelors degrees awarded to women and minorities from 30,000 annually to 50,000 by 2025, a 66% increase. The 50K Coalition is using the Collective Impact framework to develop an evidence-based approach that drives management decision-making, improvements, sharing of information, and collective action to achieve success. The first convening of the 50K Coalition in April, 2016, brought together 83 leaders of the engineering community representing 13 professional societies with over 700,000 members, deans of engineering, minority engineering and women in engineering administrators from 11 leading colleges of engineering, and corporate partners representing six global industries. Consensus was reached on the following Common Agenda items: 1.) Undergraduate support and retention; 2.) Public awareness and marketing; 3.) K-12 support; 4.) Community College linkages; 5.) Culture and climate. The Coalition will encourage member organizations to develop new programs and scale existing programs to reach the goal.
The Coalition will use shared metrics to track progress: AP® Calculus completion and high school graduation rates; undergraduate freshmen retention rates; community college transfer rates and number of engineering degrees awarded. The 50K Coalition will develop the other elements of the Collective Impact framework: Infrastructure and effective decision-making processes that will become the backbone organization with a focus on data management, communications and dissemination; a system of continuous communication including Basecamp, website, the annual Engineering Scorecard, WebEx hosted meetings and convenings; and mutually reinforcing activities such as programs, courses, seminars, webinars, workshops, promotional campaigns, policy initiatives, and institutional capacity building efforts. The National Academy of Sciences study, Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America's Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads recommended that professional associations make recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups an organizational goal and implement programs designed to reach that goal by working with their membership, academic institutions and funding agencies on new initiatives. While these types of organizations work together now in a variety of ways, the relationships are one-on-one. The 50K Coalition brings together, for the first time professional societies, engineering schools, and industry to consider what mutually reinforcing activities can most effectively encourage students from underrepresented groups to complete calculus and graduate from 4-year engineering programs.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
As the number of jobs requiring engineering education grows within the United States, women and minorities remain severely underrepresented. This imbalance threatens our nation's future economic competitiveness, our quality of life and our national security. In 2015, the U.S. produced 106,658 engineers at the bachelor's degree level of which 30,000 were women and underrepresented minorities.
In response, in 2016, the American Indian Science & Engineering Society (AISES), the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the preeminent diversity engineering organizations (collectively serving more than 85,000 pre-collegiate, collegiate and professional members), formed the 50K Coalition to focus on this vision: to produce 50,000 diverse engineering graduates annually by 2025 and to recruit all ABET-accredited engineering colleges and universities, and all professional engineering societies into the 50K Coalition to achieve the goal.
"Barriers to undergraduate retention and graduation exist within a complex of sub-problems that vary from engineering school to engineering school:. . .dramatic change ultimately requires a systems view of how these elements (and others) interlock to create the overall outcomes currently observed? (Bryk, 2011.)
The 50K Coalition chose the Collective Impact framework to structure its work (Kania & Kramer, 2011). At the first convening in 2016, representatives of engineering professional organizations, undergraduate engineering schools, and stakeholder corporations developed a common agenda of strategies to address the barriers to increasing the numbers of diverse engineering graduates. They finalized the strategies below and began working toward implementation:
Undergraduate Student Support and Retention Strategies
- Targeted recruitment efforts from traditional and non-traditional sources.
- Integrated first-year undergraduate experiences
- Engineering society engagement through campus chapters
- Multicultural/Women Engineering Programs capacity building
Community College Linkages Strategies: Activities that facilitate transfer between community colleges and four-year engineering colleges.
- A National Forum on new best practices in community college transfer
- Establish three regional hubs to implement and scale best practices.
Partner organizations and members. The 50K Coalition recruited over 60 partner organizations to 50K Coalition membership before the COVID-19 pandemic: 33 engineering societies, 22 universities, and 5 government agencies and corporations. Two working committees, designated as Action Network Groups (ANGs) were formed according to member interest, to implement the two strategies for Undergraduate Student Support and Retention (USSR ANG) and Community College Linkages (CCL ANG). Over the next two years, $2.4M in foundation and NSF funding was secured for proceeding with five of the six strategies:
A full-time project director and staff assistant were hired to manage the 50K Coalition activities in February, 2020. An Outreach and Strategic Management Consultant and Data Consultant were also secured in order to build the capacity of the 50K Coalition and scale its activities. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented significant challenges to the ability of the 50K Coalition to implement the six strategies. However, work has proceeded as much as possible virtually
The National Forum on Community College Linkages was held on May 6, 2021 to address the generally low levels of transfer for underrepresented groups, particularly in STEM disciplines and disseminate them to community colleges, and four-year engineering programs. The 50K Coalition CCL ANG partnered with members and other experts to identify promising and best practices that represent the most current research on increasing transfer of engineering students. Presenters included researchers from Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, City Colleges of Chicago, and Growth Sector. The National Academy of Engineering helped to organize the Forum and provided a keynote. Findings were disseminated through YouTube and publication of a white paper.
50K members were surveyed to gather data for the Engineering Society Engagement Initiative and a focus group was held with the USSR ANG in September, 2021. A report with data about the interactions of diversity and disciplinary societies on campuses has been developed and will be published on the 50K Coalition web site this spring.
A BPE planning grant was obtained to conduct research to scale the capacity of Multicultural Engineering Programs (MEPs) and Women in Engineering Programs (WEPs) already on campuses, and to implement MEP/WEP structures and programs on campuses that do not have them. This work is in progress.
The numbers of BIPOC and women engineering graduates have increased to over 50,000 since the founding of the 50K Coalition in 2016, with the strongest gains by women and Hispanic students. The 50K Coalition cannot demonstrate a causal relation, but is an important part of a larger movement which includes the ASEE Engineering Deans Diversity Initiative, and other NSF INCLUDES projects. The work of the 50K Coalition continues to be important so that the number of women and BIPOC students in engineering to reach parity with the U.S. population.
Last Modified: 04/06/2022
Modified by: Rochelle Williams
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