4
Transfer and 3+2 Programs

The second day of the workshop began with a panel session on transfer pathways and 3+2 programs. The four speakers in this session were Bruk Berhane (Florida International University), Nandika D’Souza (University of North Texas), Stephanie Luster-Teasley (North Carolina A&T University), and Robert Pieri (North Dakota State University). Following the short presentations, Beth Myers (University of Colorado Boulder) moderated a discussion among the speakers.

BLACK ENGINEERING STUDENT TRANSFER PROJECT

The goal of Bruk Berhane’s research is to discover the individual and institutional factors that allow “both Black American students and students from sub-Saharan Africa to be successful as engineering transfers.” He and his collaborators ask questions that focus on identifying the factors that ethnically and culturally diverse Black students say shape their transfer, persistence, and retention experiences in the process from a community college to a four-year engineering department. They are also examining the extent to which within-group differences influence the factors and experiences of these students. To answer these questions, Berhane and his colleagues use interviews and focus groups, conducted both pre- and posttransfer with some 20 transfer students, and informational interviews with faculty and staff to provide context.

The motivation for this study, explained Berhane, is data showing that fewer Black community college students, compared to all other racial and ethnic groups, transfer successfully to a four-year institution. He noted that the percentage of Black and Hispanic students who receive an associate degree in engineering does reflect their proportion of the US population. Why don’t more of these students transfer and earn their four-year engineering degree?

When Berhane looked at the pretransfer experiences of these students, those who were successful noted the importance of having a strong, positive mentoring experience with faculty who were available, who connected with the students intentionally, and who seemed vested in their students’ success. The students appreciated that their advisors kept them on track to transfer and connected them with additional campus resources, such as financial aid advisors and tutoring opportunities. These experiences, said Berhane, run counter to the narrative one hears about the four-year college experience in which students from underrepresented groups feel a lack of support from faculty and advisors.

In terms of the actual transfer process, Berhane reported that Black engineering undergraduates described navigating the transition process from community college to a four-year engineering program by themselves and that the process was not transparent or cohesive. Some cited specific faculty or staff or another type of institutional support that provided transfer

assistance at either the sending or receiving institution, but that seemed to be the exception rather than the rule for these students.

Black engineering community college transfer students described their posttransfer experience to a four-year PWI as having to adapt to a new academic environment and system involving unfamiliar practices, particularly around the intensity of the environment at their four-year institution compared to their community college. This suggests that better socialization of campus norms and academic culture at their new institution can help transfer students adjust to and succeed in their new environment.

TRANSFER STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS

The UNT engineering departments, said Nandika D’Souza, have some 4,000 students, approximately 17 percent of whom are female and approximately 40 percent of whom are Latine or Black.

Texas, she noted, has two state policies that support transfer from a community college to a four-year institution. The Texas Common Core numbering system allows students to find courses at community college that are guaranteed to apply toward a four-year degree, and the Texas transfer framework spells out the courses required for each desired field of study. Working closely with transfer coordinators at seven local community colleges, the UNT College of Engineering has established a preengineering program with guided pathways for community college students that enables them to start enrolling in some UNT classes while completing mathematics and other foundational courses missing from their high school coursework. Students are thus able to start dual community college and UNT enrollment in their second postsecondary year, rather than waiting until the third to begin engineering studies. The goal, D’Souza said, is to “build a relationship that is seamless between their originating college and their destination college.”

NORTH CAROLINA A&T UNIVERSITY’S 3+2 PROGRAM

STEM degree programs are the primary focus at North Carolina A&T University, which is the “number one producer of undergraduate engineering degrees to African Americans,…the number two in master’s degrees awarded to African Americans in engineering,” and “the number one producer of degrees awarded to African Americans in North Carolina,” said Stephanie Luster-Teasley. North Carolina A&T is classified as a “high research activity” doctoral degree-granting institution. Of the 12,000 or so students at the university, 15 percent are enrolled in the college of engineering in undergraduate and graduate programs.

The 3+2 programs, explained Luster-Teasley, are transfer articulation agreements and memoranda of understanding between colleges and universities, in which students attend their first institution for three years to focus on general education and STEM courses and then transfer to a college or university engineering program to complete the last two, more focused years of study. Students receive degrees from both institutions after completing the 3+2 curriculum.

North Carolina A&T has consortium agreements and memoranda of understanding with a variety of schools, including Spellman College and Morehouse College. Luster-Teasley stressed that the memoranda of understanding are critical in ensuring that students can transfer easily and successfully from their first institution to North Carolina A&T and that all coursework will

transfer without the student’s involvement. It also helps, she added, to have a liaison between the schools to create effective pathways for students in the program.

Given that there are likely to be cultural differences between two institutions, it is important to make sure that incoming students have a sense of belonging when they arrive on campus, said Luster-Teasley, and can form a supportive cohort in their new department. Her research, conducted with colleagues at Iowa State, has shown that micro-aggressions (micro-insults, micro-invalidations, and micro-assaults) can have a deleterious effect on students in 3+2 programs, which makes it essential to ensure that the environment these students enter is supportive and inclusive. She added that “it is really important to make sure that…the administrative supports are in place, your transfer articulation of courses is clear, the cultural differences between the first and the second college university are clearly understood and addressed” to help ease the transition for students.

GETTING NATIVE AMERICAN STUDENTS INTO ENGINEERING

In the final presentation of the session, Robert Pieri talked about North Dakota State University’s (NDSU) partnership with the state’s four tribal reservations (Fort Berthold, Spirit Lake, Standing Rock, and Turtle Mountain) and the state’s TCUs. He noted that all of the state’s public institutions of higher education have a common curriculum, course numbering system, and delivery schedules, and this helps coordinate transfers among the institutions. In addition, the entire program and the mentors at each institution “emphasize personal connections.”

He acknowledged that the history of Indigenous peoples in the United States “had two major issues, the land and movement on it that caused wars that ended in treaties that led to sovereignty,” and that US attitudes toward Indigenous populations historically have ranged from viewing them negatively to working to eradicate them to actively ignoring them. He also brought up the history of sending Indigenous youth to boarding schools and how those experiences created a “negative connotation to education off the reservation.””

The goal of the institutional partnership is to go beyond traditional admissions practices but, Pieri clarified, “it’s never about lowering standards. It’s about improving coaching.” Moreover, it is important, he said, to not change these students to mirror White engineers but to have them graduate as Native American engineers.

The cooperation between NDSU and the TCUs involves three advisory councils: administrative, engineering, and cultural. Since its inception in 2011, the program has enrolled 40 students, 11 of whom have graduated with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Two graduates are now working in their community, another two went on to get master’s degrees in engineering, and one graduate is now teaching at a tribal college.

In closing, Pieri said that Native American students want to become engineers and join the profession, but it is important to recognize that their reasons for doing so may differ from those of engineers of other backgrounds or cultures. Meeting them halfway can help them on their journey.

DISCUSSION

Myers opened the discussion by asking the speakers how having a consistent course numbering system across a state’s institutions of higher education affects a student’s ability to

transfer between institutions. Berhane replied that the common system makes it easy to inform students and their parents that the course available at their local community college will transfer to a four-year institution, reduces the workload for admissions officers and advisors, and provides students with timely feedback on their transcripts. He characterized it as “a win-win type of situation, for the student as well as the faculty and advisors.” D’Souza argued that it is imperative for engineering students to have “the right courses be commonly numbered,” including “the statics, the mechanics, the circuits courses.” North Dakota, said Pieri, has a common numbering system that does make transferring easier, and North Carolina, added Luster-Teasley, is in the process of creating a common numbering system for the state’s institutions of higher education, including the “foundational engineering courses to…facilitate transfer.”

Myers then asked the speakers for their thoughts on having summer bridge programs for students transferring from two- to four-year institutions. Pieri replied that NDSU’s summer bridge program brings students to campus for two weeks, provides a course for credit, and offers 45 hours of contact time with faculty and peers. The program plays an important role in building a cohort and fostering interactions between Indigenous students and the other students on campus. Berhane mentioned a summer program specific to “engineering majors and the courses that are necessary to reduce the time to degree.” For example, aerospace engineering students could take a summer course required for the bachelor’s degree but not offered at any community college in the state, and this helps them stay on track for graduation. In addition to coursework, bridge programs organize group lunches, campus tours, and other activities designed to help transfer students feel more familiar with campus.

North Carolina A&T’s summer bridge program connects transfer students with advisors and faculty who can help address some of the students’ fears and “dispel some of their myths or their insecurities so [when] they start the typical fall semester, they hit the ground running,” said Luster-Teasley. D’Souza said UNT offers a summer bridge program but many transfer students do not attend because it would mean giving up hours of work and the associated pay. Instead, the university has moved much of what it would have included in a bridge program into its first-year engineering discovery program.

Asked how to scale North Dakota State’s program to get more Native American students into the engineering profession, Pieri said the most important thing is to establish connections with the tribal colleges. Although the numbers are small (approximately 25 students a year consider studying engineering), making the effort to recruit them results in a “different culturally based view of sustainability” that can inform the engineering profession. Luster-Teasley noted that North Carolina A&T gets about 20 students a year transferring into its engineering programs from the 3+2 partner institutions, and three to four of them graduate in her department.

An attendee asked the panel to comment on what type of interactions would be most helpful for students who want to complete a bachelor’s degree. Pieri said that every interaction is helpful, and that a goal is to provide as much contact with transfer students as possible before they get to campus so they can start seeing faculty members as people they can relate to and talk with. He stressed the importance of reaching out intentionally to transfer students, particularly those from marginalized communities. D’Souza said she also suggests that incoming students connect with UNT’s student chapters of professional organizations such as the National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, or Society of Women Engineers.

Luster-Teasley said her institution invites students to campus, takes them on tours through the labs, and introduces them to individual faculty members and other students. The university also holds events for community college advisors so they can meet with department heads, talk about their programs, and identify any roadblocks to success that they have seen affect incoming transfer students. In addition, the school invites both the advisors and students together, which it has found helps students feel more comfortable about attending North Carolina A&T. Pieri and Berhane both agreed that this type of interaction with the community college advisors is crucial because they see the students on a regular basis.

Berhane added that providing some kind of financial support to transfer students is important because many of them have been working while going to school, supporting families and themselves, so anything that can reduce their financial obligations so they can focus more on school will benefit everyone.

An attendee asked the speakers if they have found students in 3+2 programs who decide to stay at their initial institution rather than finishing their degree at the second institution. Luster-Teasley said she has not seen that at her institution because these students want their engineering degree, which they cannot get at the first institution. What has happened on occasion, she said, is that a student will decide to go to a different institution to finish their 3+2 program, which is something D’Souza has seen in Texas, too.

Asked whether it is possible in a given state to have articulation agreements between 3+2 programs, or even community colleges, that go down to the syllabus and curriculum level to ease access and barriers to transfer, D’Souza said the state’s common core does that. It involves sharing syllabi across the campuses and having all the faculty members in one discipline agree on the common topics that will be covered in each of the courses. Pieri agreed that this can be helpful, and elaborated that it is even more helpful if the fields of study get together in the way that D’Souza described to make sure students do not have to backfill courses they did not know they needed when they were at their community college.

Myers asked the speakers to identify what they see as the most compelling inequities in the transfer process to address immediately. Berhane mentioned the often overlooked group of students who test into developmental math, adding that although many faculty expect students from community colleges to have taken precalculus or calculus courses, “the reality is that a lot of students and particularly students of color coming in at developmental math levels will not even attain to calculus, let alone earn an engineering degree. I think that’s a real issue of access that we need to think about, and how we can bridge the gap.” He concluded that “just trying to move students along that pathway would be a tremendous benefit to democratizing engineering.” D’Souza echoed that idea and said her institution has developed an algebra degree plan and dual enrollment options that have become very popular, but inequities arise in getting the information about this program directly to students at the community colleges and even in secondary schools. Luster-Teasley agreed that math preparation is a major inequity and stressed the importance of reaching students who might be interested in engineering early in secondary education so that they can get on the right track in their math preparation.

Another inequity cited by Luster-Teasley has to do with older students who were in the military or the civilian workforce, many of whom have families and are not looking for the same college experience as younger students. They may also want help navigating a new system and feeling welcome and part of the campus community, but often they do not have time to spend on extracurricular activities and want to get their degree as quickly as possible. For these students,

clearly articulating the requirements for their chosen major can help them move through their programs expeditiously.

For a final question, Myers asked the speakers for their ideas on restructuring engineering education to meet learners where they are. Pieri suggested making sure that students know how to get support, including from their peers, as they are managing their workloads, adding that educators “have to drop the intimidation level” while maintaining curricular standards.

D’Souza discussed math requirements related to ABET accreditation, and noted specifically that in some engineering disciplines “there is no problem with the prerequisites of math fitting the learning outcomes of subsequent classes,” but in others (e.g., computer science) the math is not as relevant. She added that “the synonymous use of calculus being an engineering requirement for learning” causes problems for many learners, and suggested revisiting “where math is actually relevant to prerequisite knowledge and where it is not.” She also mentioned the market for vocational skills that students can enhance with management skills and said that UNT has developed some applied degree tracks to support students.

Luster-Teasley pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic opened up the opportunity to be creative and innovative in the way coursework is offered and students learn the skills for a career as a professional engineer. She suggested looking at innovation and entrepreneurship and how programs and faculty can inspire their students to learn (both in person and remotely) and apply those lessons to the problems facing society today. Berhane seconded that idea and also said that the connection between community colleges and four-year institutions would benefit by making them bidirectional, so that four-year institutions can learn what works best with their students from the community colleges. He would like to see community colleges at the table when talking about expanding participation in engineering and mentoring and supporting students.

In closing, the speakers asked for the engineering education community to be flexible and open-minded when it comes to thinking about what defines success for engineering transfer students and to continue to think about how to best support students.