1887

Abstract

Over the past three decades, the U.S. social, educational and economic outcomes for African-American and Hispanic (minority) males have been more systemically devastating than the outcomes for any other group - such as race, ethnicity, or gender group. In 2009/10, the national high school graduation rate for African-American male (AAM) students was 52%, while the graduation rate for Caucasian males students was 78%. On average, AAMs are more likely to attend the most segregated and least-resourced public schools. However, in most states, the stratification of school quality works to minimize educational opportunities specifically for African-American students. According to a 2012 National Science Foundation report, AAM students made up only 4% of the currently enrolled male students in engineering.

Therefore, there is a compelling need for a program that develops self-efficacy in Under-Represented Minority (URM) male students in engineering fields. To answer this need, professor and lifelong mentor, Dr. Christine Grant, developed the national mentored-leadership initiative program to empower URM students at the high school and the 2-year and 4-year undergraduate levels in their successful pursuit of engineering careers. This objective is accomplished by actively partnering students with senior URM mentors (i.e. graduate students, post-doctoral associates and faculty members) in targeted research, academic preparation, and professional development. Students that completed the program more likely have a stronger mathematics and programming foundations and a firm understanding of the translational aspects of their research, enabling them to make informed career choices to maximize their expertise and engineering interests. Ultimately, this outcome can be achieved through engaged participation in: a “mentoring incubator” and mentoring course led by URM full professor and lifelong mentor; weekly math and programming tutoring sessions, one-on-one meetings with an education mentor to discuss research and learning contracts, interactive seminars and roundtable discussions with mentee “success story” resource group; sessions with research group of successful URM engineering faculty; and targeted research experiences at a large research university (i.e. North Carolina State University), leveraging partnerships with agency-sponsored programs. The participated students present their final research results at a showcase event and a university-wide Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium at North Carolina State University.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/papers/10.5339/qproc.2015.elc2014.12
2015-08-29
2024-03-28
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/qproc/2015/4/qproc.2015.elc2014.12.html?itemId=/content/papers/10.5339/qproc.2015.elc2014.12&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Male, 2012. http://blackboysreport.org/urgency-of-now/index.html .
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Grant C. Mentoring. In: Pritchard PA, ed. Success strategies for women in science: A portable mentor. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Press 2006;:85106.
    [Google Scholar]
  3.   The National Science Foundation. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/minwomen.cfm .
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Coffman J. Learning from Logic Models. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project 1999.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Rossi PH, Lipsey MW, Freeman HE. Evaluation: A systematic approach. seventh edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications 2003.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Fetterman DM. Empowerment evaluation: Building communities of practice and a culture of learning. American Journal of Community Psychology. 2002; 30:1:89102.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Stufflebeam DL. Empowerment evaluation, objectivist evaluation, and evaluation standards: Where the future of evaluation should not go and where it needs to go. American Journal of Evaluation. 1994; 15:1:321338.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Fetterman DM, Wandersman A. Empowerment evaluation: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. American Journal of Community Psychology. 2007; 28:1:179198.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Patton MQ. Toward distinguishing empowerment evaluation and placing it in a larger context: Take two. American Journal of Evaluation. 2005; 26:3:408414.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Scriven M. Empowerment evaluation examined. American Journal of Evaluation. 1997; 18:1:165175.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Palmer RT, Davis RJ, Moore JL III, Hilton AA. A nation at risk: Increasing college participation and persistence among African American males to stimulate U.S. global competitiveness. Journal of African American Males in Education. 2010; 1:2:105124.
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.5339/qproc.2015.elc2014.12
Loading
/content/papers/10.5339/qproc.2015.elc2014.12
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error