Promoting Academic Excellence Among Underrepresented Community College Engineering Students through a Summer Research Internship Program

A recent report prepared by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology indicates that the United States needs to produce one million additional STEM professionals in the next decade in order to retain its historical preeminence in science and technology. The report proposes that addressing the retention problem in the first two years of college is the most promising and cost-effective strategy to address this need. Among the Council's recommendations is to engage students in research early in college by implementing research courses for students in the first two years, and establishing collaborations between research universities and community colleges to provide all students access to research experiences. This paper is a description of a collaborative project between a small Hispanic-serving community college and a large urban university to address the retention and completion problems among underrepresented community college students through a summer research internship program. Developed through a three-year grant funded by the NASA Curriculum Improvements Partnership Award for the Integration of Research (CIPAIR) program, the ten-week summer research internship program provides opportunities for freshmen and sophomore community college students to participate in engineering research under the supervision of a university professor and a graduate student mentor. Research topics covered during the internship program include performance-based earthquake engineering, circuit design for biomedical applications, embedded systems design, and transistor reliability issues in nano-scale circuits. The first two years of implementation of the program have generated high quality research outcomes from the participating community college students. Post-program surveys also indicate success in strengthening students' identity as engineers, in increasing student interest to further engage in research activities, and in enhancing student self-efficacy for successfully transferring to a four-year university, completing a baccalaureate degree in engineering, and pursuing a graduate degree.