Not every freshman is ready for the demands of a college classroom. For engineering students, that shift from high school to college may be quite challenging. The hurdles are especially high for first-generation college women and minorities, students who historically have been underrepresented in engineering classrooms. In the first year students are expected to take calculus, physics, and chemistry; some won’t make it past the critical first semester as engineering majors.
Through a summer “bridge” course known as Engineering Ahead at Penn State Altoona, Associate Professor of Engineering Peter Shull and Professor of Mathematics Mark Johnson are working to prevent those losses from the engineering program. In years past, “University Park had two programs for underrepresented students in engineering, the Academic Summer Enhancement [ASE] Program for UPark-bound engineering students and Pre-First year Science and Engineering [PREF] Program for commonwealth campus–bound engineering students,” says Shull.
This summer for the first time at Penn State Altoona 12 students took a course modeled on ASE and PREF. Invitations to attend the class were sent to 51 underrepresented incoming engineering majors. Shull was pleased with the result: “We got a good response. Oddly, despite no cost to the student, these programs often struggle to get students to attend,” whether it’s because they need to stay at a summer job and earn as much money as possible for college or, more commonly, because “it’s the last summer with my friends, and I did well in high school.”
Shull understands those reasons but he also knows that for some students, this program “is going to make a huge difference and often the difference of success or failure in the first year. Students generally don’t understand that success factors are more than just your high school grades. They have a high B student and you look at the low SAT scores and you know that person needs the program. High school grades are often not a good indicator” of a student’s potential success.
The program itself was no summer camp experience. The students were up at 8 a.m. for breakfast and possible tutoring before starting class at 9 and going straight through until 5:30. After dinner, 1.5 hours was designated for study/tutor time. Weekends allowed some free time, but, still, the focus was preparing students for college. The weekends included study time and Sunday night was a school night with a minimum of 1.5 hours of study time.
While Shull says, “Mark Johnson and I did this as a team; we had an extremely effective and efficient working relationship between the math and engineering departments,” he also acknowledges that “one of the best aspects of this program was the overwhelming interest from the number of faculty that said, ‘we’ll do this.’ We needed to get faculty to cover all the things the students were doing.” Michael Weiner and Wojciech Dorabiala, both associate professors of mathematics, along with Johnson, taught the math classes. Ingrid Das, a lecturer in English, was the English instructor. Associate Professor of Physics Kofi Adu taught physics and Associate Professor of Chemistry Richard Bell taught chemistry. Shull covered the class on “Student Success Factors.” Additional support was provided by David Knepp, a professional tutor, and two program assistants, Brooke Schnitzer and Matthew Ludwig, who, Shull says, were “indispensable and incredibly creative.” On the logistics side, “people worked well with us to get this to happen. We had really good support from Food and Housing and the administration.” It was definitely a team effort.
Such an effort costs money, of course. The 2016 program was funded by a grant awarded to the Office of Engineering Diversity in Penn State’s College of Engineering from the National Science Foundation. Titled “Sustainable Bridges from Campus to Campus: Retention Models for Transitioning Underrepresented Engineering Students,” this $1.7-million grant is for programs designed to increase the retention rate of underrepresented and first-generation engineering students.
The program also had “strong support from our administration, who kicked about 25 percent,” Shull notes. When asked about that support, Chancellor and Dean Lori Bechtel-Wherry said, “Penn State Altoona is one of the University’s most diverse campuses, attracting a large group of underrepresented students across all disciplines. We are also eminently aware of the challenges faced by underrepresented groups, particularly in STEM disciplines. We view this grant as a transformative endeavor between several campuses to see all students, and particularly those from underrepresented groups, become successful as they pursue engineering degrees. We expect that this collaboration will result in new knowledge and best practices that can be shared across the University.”
The students who attended the summer program are now in the fall semester but the work for faculty is far from over. Shull and Johnson want to “study the efficacy of offering targeted support such as the bridge program while balancing constraints most notable funding. We know these programs work, but do they work well enough to justify the cost? And, can the program be sustainable without external funding? Currently the program including room and board is free to the students. This is important as many of the target audience have high financial need.” Shull recognizes the commitment—and work—that will be needed to make the program the best it can be: “Fundamentally, we want to optimize the program format that will maximize student success and minimize costs. This will require significant experimentation and study.” And with that work, the Engineering Ahead program will move forward.
Therese Boyd, ’79