(76n) Linking Community College Students to Engineering

This project presents the results of an NSF grant to support transfer students from community colleges to the University of South Alabama. It will be shown how this project stimulated enrollment, enhanced retention in engineering programs at the University, and increased the technical work force in the Mobile area. The targeted community colleges have large minority populations and many first generation students. In particular, this project addresses financial barriers of minority community college students by providing scholarships each year to students from area community colleges. The students were placed in learning communities and provided with faculty and student mentors and academic support systems. Participants interacted with K-12 students, broadening the impact of the program. Data on the "what worked" and "what did not work" will be presented and a rational methodology for facilitating the transition from community college to the university will be discussed. In particular, we will show how performance in basic mathematics and science courses community colleges correlated with performance in engineering courses in the univeristy. Furthermore, academic and non-academic issues that the students faced when they transitioned to the university, will be discussed.