Abstract
Beginning with the graduating high school class of 2015, the Tennessee Promise program provides "last-dollar" scholarships and mentoring programs focused on increasing the number of students at any of the state's 13 community colleges, 27 colleges of applied technology, or other eligible institution offering an associate's degree. In its inaugural class, about 58,000 students (90% of Tennessee's senior class) applied for Tennessee Promise. Thus, the faculty and administration at the University of Tennessee anticipate that transfer students are likely an increasingly important fraction of the student body. In the Tickle College of Engineering, transfer student enrollment has increased at an average rate of 10% per year over the last five years. Transfer students face a unique set of challenges, which differ from those who begin their first year at a university as freshmen. The challenges are both academic-adapting to the reduction in individual attention with university coursework-and social-lacking a well-defined peer-cohort with whom the adjustment to university life can be shared. In engineering, transfer students also statistically represent a different demographic population than the student body of entering freshmen (the fraction of first-generation college students is double (32% compared to 15%) among transfer students, which can potentially bring cultural challenges as well. These challenges manifest in an unfortunate fact: currently the fraction of engineering transfer students who do not graduate within 5 years is nearly double (29% to 15%) that of traditional engineering students who have an analogous two years of college behind them. Finally, existing programs for financial aid are disproportionately distributed to students who enter the university system as freshmen relative to transfer students. The objective of the TranSCEnD program at the University of Tennessee is to increase the retention of engineering transfer students to a level comparable to engineering students, who entered the Tickle College of Engineering as freshmen. A program which spans a five-year process-two years at the community college, a summer bridge program, and three years at University of Tennessee-is proposed. Activities include faculty exchange between institutions, student skills seminars, sustained mentoring, intra-cohort peer learning, and inter-cohort peer-teaching. The individual elements of the program as well as the synergistic integration of elements have been chosen to balance two influences: (1) a program designed with theoretical influence from Tinto's Theory of Voluntary Student Departure, and (2) a practical acknowledgment of demonstrated success at the University of Tennessee. This paper will provide a summary of the TranSCEnD program as well as provide an update on current activities from the grant team.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Journal | ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings |
| State | Published - Jun 15 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | 126th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Charged Up for the Next 125 Years, ASEE 2019 - Tampa, United States Duration: Jun 15 2019 → Jun 19 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The leadership in the TCE at UTK has identified as a strategic priority: the need to internally develop programs to better facilitate the success of a growing number of transfer students. Over the past five years, the number of transfer student admitted to the TCE has increased by more than 10% annually on average, rising from 97 students in academic year 2011-12 to 159 students in 2016-17. Similarly, engineering participation at local community colleges such as Pellissippi Community College (PSCC) has also grown, with 175 students starting in the engineering curriculum in 2010-2011 to 240 students starting in 2015-2016. Transfer students face a unique set of challenges, which differ from those who begin their first year at a university as freshmen. The challenges are both academic—adapting to the reduction in individual attention with university coursework—and social—lacking a well-defined peer-cohort with whom the adjustment to university life can be shared. Transfer students also statistically represent a different demographic population than the student body of entering freshmen, which can potentially bring cultural challenges as well. Certainly the TCE (and UTK as a whole) have in place a variety of support systems and programs to optimize the success of the general student body. There is also an office specifically designed to serve transfer students broadly. This project intends to create a complementary program that specifically serves transfer students in the TCE. The TranSCEnD program invokes the concept of Co-Design, in which all stakeholders are actively involved in the design process to help ensure the results meet their needs and is usable. In this case, TCE administrators, tenured faculty, lecturers and staff, with explicit input from local community college partners, have developed a process to enhance the transition of students from a community college to UTK TCE. The process spans the student experience from the community college, continues through a summer transitional workshop, and persists through graduation at UTK. Financial support is offered to eligible students through the funds provided by the S-STEM program. The process is meant to remain flexible since the needs and situations will vary greatly from one transfer student to another. Two departments, the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) will initially participate in TranSCEnD. They have an explicit interest in the success of the TranSCEnD program, as part of an effort to increase undergraduate enrollment in their respective departments; in other words, these departments want to leverage the opportunity created by the Tennessee Promise program to actively recruit qualified transfer students. Introductory courses (Introduction to Materials Science in MSE and Structural Mechanics in CEE) will be offered during the summer before transfer at UTK. Each course is linked to a bridge project that combines elements of civil engineering and materials science in an interdisciplinary, team-based design of an alternative energy system. In the first semester at UTK, a Student Skills for Success (SSS) seminar course will continue both the science of the project as well as reinforce academic habits for success. TranSCEnD will become a cohort-spanning community as senior participants become team leaders in the transition project and seminar. The TranSCEnD program will adhere to best-practices stemming from both educational theory and hands-on experience at UTK. The pedagogical results will be carefully assessed, evaluated and disseminated.
Funding Information:
Programmatic support for the TranSCEnD program will include a variety of events, coursework, group projects, and advising to both encourage students to participate in the program as well as aid in their success. These programmatic pieces align with the high impact practices identified by the AAC&U [22] and are structured throughout the academic career of the transfer student. They are designed to meet the socio-academic needs of the community college transfer student [19]. Offerings to students are high-lighted in the call-out box above. Additional detail in terms of how each element is integrated into a showcase timeline is provided in Figure 4 below. Also shown in Figure 4 is a schematic describing how the TranSCEnD scholarship would complement the Tennessee Promise scholarship, which is applicable only at community colleges. In the state of Tennessee, a second common scholarship is the Hope Scholarship, which is funded by the Tennessee state lottery. The Hope Scholarship is a four-year, merit-based and covers 80% of the cost at either a community college or a state university. A Hope Scholarship can transfer with a student from the community college to UTK. However, a transfer student with a Hope Scholarship may require additional financial support (potentially through a TranSCEnD scholarship) for two reasons. First, the tuition at UTK is higher than that at a community college. Second, historically, relatively few engineering students, especially transfer students, finish in the four-year life of the Hope Scholarship. Therefore, financial aid in the fifth year is often required. For these reasons, schematics for students on both the Tennessee Promise and Hope scholarships are shown in Figure 4.
Publisher Copyright:
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2019