Enhancing the Interest, Participation, and Retention of Underrepresented Students in Engineering through a Summer Engineering Institute

The summer engineering institute (SEI) in San Francisco State University is a two-week residential engineering program designed to attract, recruit and retain high school seniors and community college students to enter engineering programs. In 2008 Canada College, a Hispanic-Serving community college in Redwood City, collaborated with San Francisco State University, a comprehensive urban university, to design and implement the summer engineering institute which is funded by the US Department of Education's Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP) grant to increase the likelihood of success among underrepresented and educationally disadvantaged students interested in pursuing careers in STEM fields. Prior to its partnership with Canada College, SFSU has many years of experience in offering an engineering residential program funded by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). With the newly funded grant from the DOE, the Summer Engineering Institute has been designed and taught by SFSU engineering faculty from Civil, Electrical, Mechanical and Computer engineering programs. The redesigned summer program involves projects that were specifically designed to motivate students' interest in hands-on research. The program also offers students the opportunity to gain insight into various engineering career options, and academic programs through a combination of lectures, field trips, and workshops. Preliminary results indicate SEI participants showed greater understanding of the engineering profession and increased interest in STEM fields. This paper aims to show how a summer engineering program can be designed to enhance interest in engineering among minority students, and how faculty can be actively involved in designing a program that has the potential to strengthen the engineering education pipeline.