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This paper presents information about outreach projects completed by 13 students in a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program offered in an aerospace engineering department at a U.S. midwestern university during summer 2021. The outreach project was a component of the REU program. This paper provides a detailed description of the outreach project goals and procedures and explores the project's impact on the students. Anonymous responses to openended questions show the positive impact the projects had on the students, including the satisfaction they received from designing and completing the projects from start to finish and potentially helping to broaden the participation of underrepresented students in STEM. Using an open-coding data analysis method, four themes based on student responses were identified. These themes include students' positive response towards the outreach project, their increased understanding of others' diverse walks of life, feeling uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations, and gaining more confidence in pursuing their chosen degree. The paper concludes by presenting recommendations for other engineering REU sites considering similar outreach projects for their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of an engineering pathways program for underserved high school students. The innovating Detroit's Robotics Agile Workforce (iDRAW) program is administered by the University of Detroit Mercy and is in its third year of working with two local high schools. The students are predominantly low-income and from populations historically underrepresented in STEM. The goal of the program is to increase interest in STEM-related careers while reducing barriers to entering such fields. The program aims to provide on-ramps to a range of careers across disciplines (mechanical, electrical, software, etc.) requiring different levels of educational attainment (4-yr university, 2-yr college, apprenticeships, etc.). In the first two years of the program, there were 97 qualifying graduates with nearly half going on to study a STEM discipline in college and over a quarter choosing to major in engineering or computer science at a 4-year university. Of the qualifying graduates, 55% were Latinx, 5% were Black, and 37% were Arab American. Preliminary data shows the program correlated with a modest increase in STEM career interest and students perceived the program to help them prepare for their future, though the program might not have had a positive impact on student self-efficacy in STEM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmingdale State College (FSC) is primarily a commuter four-year college within a large state college system. Computing degrees at FSC have traditionally struggled with gender disparity in enrollment, consistent with many other national and global computing degrees. While the student enrollment in FSC computing degrees has doubled, the female population has hovered at 8-15% over the last decade. This research study focuses on designing an orientation program for women computing students of FSC and measuring its effectiveness on the female student experience. Details about measurement and assessment of the design decisions and implementation details, and data analysis of pre- and post-orientation survey results from the pilot version of the (re)orientation held in summer 2021 are presented. The main goal of the (re)orientation program is to provide an environment for connections to be established among the small female population enrolled fostering camaraderie and recognition as female students begin their upcoming semester. A secondary goal is for the students to gain familiarity with the campus, department and technical tools used in classes to give an edge to the female students for the new semester. The timing of the (re)orientation session coincided with return to campus after being remote for two and half semesters due to the global COVID19 pandemic and hence implementing the pilot and evaluating its results were additionally important. There is a wide variety in approach, objectives, and outcomes of orientation programs in general, however, it is rare for orientation programs to be focused on gender balance and even more rare in the context of commuter colleges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Video game design is an emerging educational area, related to yet distinct from programs in information technology and game studies. This pilot study aimed to explore the role of diversity in video game design education. Data collection included interviews with two instructors and three students. This poster presents two themes: 1) why diversity is important to game design education and 2) how to address diversity in game design education. The results of this pilot study indicate the need for additional research on the role of diversity in video game design education and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]