With the support from the US Department of Education through the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP). Four community engineering students have participated in the "Accelerated STEM Pathways through Internships, Research, Engagement, and Support" (ASPIRES) at San Francisco State University in summer 2018. This paper presents the summer intern project findings on collapse simulation of a one-bay-one-story steel frame developed in The Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (OpenSees). Interns conducted the research on the model identification and uncertainty quantification of the modified Ibarra-Medina-Krawinkler (IMK) model. Through the presentation of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis, the modified IMK model parameters are recognized and their uncertainty is quantified. This program provides mentorship for interns with the scientific research in earthquake engineering, and trains interns to integrate theory and practice, which serves preparation of their transition to a four-year university.

Despite increasingly urgent calls to broaden the participation of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in engineering, not much progress has been achieved. Since 2000, underrepresented minorities’ shares in engineering and physical science degrees have been flat despite a rapid increase in their representation of the overall US population. In fact, even though URMs currently constitute 30 percent of the US population, they account for only about 12.5 percent of baccalaureate degrees awarded in engineering. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) Report Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with Degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics states a critical need to dramatically increase the number of STEM graduates by addressing the retention problem in the first two years of college. One of their recommendations was to engage students in research experiences within the first two years of college. Through a grant from the Department of Education Minorities in Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP), XXXX, a Hispanic-serving community college from Northern California developed the Accelerated STEM Pathways through Internships, Research, Engagement, and Support (ASPIRES) project, a collaborative initiative that addresses identified barriers to student success using high-impact educational practices that have been shown to enhance interest, increase participation, and improve outcomes for underrepresented minority students in STEM. One of the main components of this project is a three-tiered internship program that that is suitable for community college students and provides multiple exposures to undergraduate research opportunities. This paper focuses on the first tier of this initiative, the development and implementation of the ASPIRES Scholars Research Program: a two-week introduction to research internship experience. Held during the winter break, the program introduces freshmen and rising sophomores to scientific research as well as a variety of topics and skills such as applying for internships; introduction to the research process; university laboratory tours; library presentation on conducting literature reviews; the university transfer process for community college students; technical presentation skills; and project-specific topics including experimental methods, instrumentation, and data acquisition and error analysis. The paper provides a detailed description of the program curriculum, results from the Winter 2016 cohort, and key findings on program outcomes relating to changes in students’ engagement in their academics, confidence in applying for and obtaining further internships, transfer preparedness, teamwork ability, and sense of self-efficacy.

Despite the growth of minority communities in America during the past few decades, trends in the underrepresentation of minorities in science and engineering have persisted. In 2015, although the total U.S. population was comprised of 13% of African Americans, they represented 5% of the science and engineering workforce. Similarly, although the percentage of Latinos in the workforce increased significantly from 3% in 1970 to 15% in 2011, they represented 6% of workers in science and engineering. Native American, Pacific Islander, Hawaiian, and Southeast Asians also remain underrepresented, making up 2% of the workers in science and engineering. Toward addressing this achievement gap, there is a growing awareness of the role that community colleges play as a crucial gateway for low-income and minority students to pursue careers in STEM. However, this gateway does not always lead to success. A recent study shows that 69% of STEM students pursuing an Associate’s Degree on the national level, changed majors or left college without completing a degree or certificate. The educational effectiveness research offices of numerous community colleges largely identify that the Calculus I course serves as a major barrier for an exceedingly high number of students (60-80%) who enter at remedial math levels. Additionally, the difficulty of persevering in STEM pathways is exemplified in the low pass rates (40-55%) for additional core major requirements, such as Introduction to Chemistry and Introduction to Programming. The lack of retention of STEM students in community colleges and the lack of growth of minority representation in science and engineering demonstrates the need to develop strategic programs and practices that increase the number and diversity of students succeeding in STEM. Toward addressing this need, in partnership with the Silicon Valley Engineering Tech Pathways (SVETP), XXXXX College developed and began piloting the Engineering & Tech Scholars Program (ETS) program, a cohort-based STEM learning community designed to address major attrition points and increase the retention and diversity of students pursuing careers in STEM. With the pilot starting in the Fall of 2016, students benefit from a cohort system that encourages the development of a strong community of peer support, accelerated math courses allowing for accelerated transfer in comparison to traditional STEM program pathways, an embedded Retention Specialist in and outside of the classroom, as well as STEM scholarships and paid summer internships opportunities to offset the high financial cost of STEM degrees. This paper details the development, implementation, and initial outcomes of the program in order contribute to the body of research of evidence-based program initiatives to increase the diversity and engagement of underrepresented communities in STEM. Quantitative and qualitative data, illustrating student success and engagement, are reviewed along with student perceptions of the program to extract key insights informing future programs and best practices for maximum impact.

Some argue that the concept of a makerspace has been around since the late 1800s, starting out in public libraries, with the most recent modern, public versions originating around the year 2000. In 2009, MIT formed the Fab Foundation as a way to formalize Fab Labs and Innovation Centers, regarding equipment and capabilities of those lab spaces. Since then, makerspaces, fab labs, innovation centers, and engineering labs have grown exponentially, primarily within colleges and universities, as well as at public libraries, and private companies open to the public. It is only recently that community colleges have started to follow this trend in the creation and use of these types of spaces. Compared to as as community colleges these many community college innovation centers can barely be considered a makerspace due to limitations of equipment and scope of capabilities, let alone staffing within an environment that focuses on a near one hundred percent off-campus student body. This paper is intended to present a brief history of this up and coming technological space, based on a review of the very small literature base, as well as share suggestions and lessons learned from two collaborative community colleges that jumped into this innovative, yet expensive endeavor, while on an often extremely limited budget, with minimal, or even zero, guidance from others.

For the past several years, institutions of higher education have devoted resources towards increasing the number and diversity of engineering graduates by addressing the retention problem in the first two years of college.One of the strategies commonly employed in improving undergraduate STEM education is providing students access to research experiences.There are many studies documenting the benefits of research opportunities for undergraduate students including increased student engagement in their education, enhanced research and laboratory skills, improved academic performance, increased student self-efficacy, and increased understanding and interest for their discipline.These studies also show that early and multiple exposures to undergraduate research experiences offer the greatest benefit.However, a recent extensive study of Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs shows that the vast majority of these research experiences are provided to junior and senior students.Developing successful research programs is particularly challenging in community colleges, most of which do not have on-going research programs.This paper is a description of how a small engineering transfer program at a Hispanic-Serving community college in California developed a three-tier research internship program suitable for community college students at different stages of their academic careers.The first part of the program is a two-week Winter Research Scholars Program held during the winter break for students in the beginning stages of their studies.The second part is a ten-week Summer Group Research Internship Program for sophomore students who have no previous research experience and have at least one more year of courses to complete at the community college before transfer.The Summer Individual Research Internship Program is a ten-week program for rising junior students who have completed all the required lower-division courses for transfer to a four-year university and are transferring in the fall semester following their participation in the program.The paper will highlight the development of partnerships with neighboring universities and research institutions, the results and lessons learned from the pilot implementation of the two summer internship programs, and future plans to improve the programs and maximize their impact in enhancing the academic success of community college engineering students and strengthening community college engineering transfer programs.

Topology optimization has great potential to achieve the most economical and efficient engineering designs due to its ability to allocate materials to the most effective locations. Topology optimization techniques have been applied to tall building design. However, due to the lack of an automated process, a simplified procedure is commonly used to find the optimized pattern of the exterior bracing. An automated topology optimization platform that utilizes commercially available software packages would be very helpful to promote the usage of topology optimization and adoption of the research outcomes. The California Community College System, with its enrollment of approximately 2.5 million students, is in a prime position to grow the future science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. Through the U.S. Department of Education funded collaborative Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program: Accelerated STEM Pathways through Internships, Research, Engagement, and Support (ASPIRES) cooperative program between Cañada College, a Hispanic-Serving community college and San Francisco State University (SFSU), a public comprehensive university, a 10-week summer program is set up to provide opportunity for community college students to experience the excitement of state-of-the-art research. In this summer program, the community college students were working closely with graduate students in SFSU to develop a user-friendly platform that streamlines various software packages in different stages of the design process, from modeling to finite element analysis and topology optimization. Topology optimization of a cantilever beam with a moving point load was used to test the developed platform. Systematic workshops and learning modules were prepared to help participating students get ready for upcoming challenges and to provide them a meaningful research experience. The feedback from the students showed that the ASPIRES program offers an effective way to engage students, even with little or no background in engineering courses or research topics, from a community college in engineering research. The pre- and post-program survey results demonstrated that the internship program helped the participating students better understand research and science and increase their independency toward the goal of graduating mature, independent, informed, and globally competitive STEM graduates.

Community colleges play an important role in educating future scientists and engineers, especially among students from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Community college transfer programs offer lower-division courses that students can take in preparation for transfer to a four-year program. For many small community colleges, however, developing a comprehensive transfer engineering program that prepares students to be competitive for transfer can be challenging due to a lack of facilities, resources, and local expertise. As a result, engineering education becomes inaccessible to many community college students. Through a grant from the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program (NSF IUSE), three community colleges from Northern California collaborated to develop resources and teaching strategies to enable small-to-medium community college engineering programs to support a comprehensive set of lower-division engineering courses that are delivered either completely online, or with limited face-to-face interactions. This paper focuses on the development and testing of the teaching and learning resources for Engineering Graphics, which is a four-unit course (three units of lecture and one unit of lab) covering the principles of engineering drawings, computer-aided design (using both AutoCAD and SolidWorks), and the engineering design process. The paper also presents the results of the pilot implementation of the curriculum, as well as a comparison of the outcomes of the online course with those from a regular, face-to-face course. Student performance on labs and tests in the two parallel sections of the course are compared. Additionally student surveys and interviews, conducted in both the online and face-to-face course are used to document and compare students’ perceptions of their learning experience, the effectiveness of the course resources, their use of these resources, and their overall satisfaction with the course.

Broadening participation in engineering among underrepresented minority students remains a big challenge for institutions of higher education. Since a large majority of underrepresented students attend community colleges, engineering transfer programs at these community colleges can play an important role in addressing this challenge. However, for most community college engineering programs, developing strategies and programs to increase the number and diversity of students successfully pursuing careers in engineering is especially challenging due to limited expertise, shrinking resources, and continuing budget crises. This paper is a description of how a small engineering transfer program at a Hispanic-Serving community college in California developed effective partnerships with high schools, other institutions of higher education, and industry partners in order to create opportunities for underrepresented community college students to excel in engineering. Developed through these partnerships are programs for high school students, current community college students, and community college engineering faculty. Programs for high school students include a) the Summer Engineering Institute – a two-week residential summer camp for sophomore and junior high school students, and b) the STEM Institute – a three-week program for high school freshmen to explore STEM fields. Academic and support programs for college students include: a) Math Jam – a one-week intensive math placement test review and preparation program; b) a scholarship and mentoring program academically talented and financially needy STEM students; c) a two-week introduction to research program held during the winter break to prepare students for research internships; d) a ten-week summer research internship program; e) Physics Jam – an intensive program to prepare students for success in Physics; f) Embedded Peer Instruction Cohort – a modified Supplemental Instruction program for STEM courses; g) STEM Speaker Series – a weekly presentation by professionals talking about their career and educational paths. Programs for community college STEM faculty and transfer programs include: a) Summer Engineering Teaching Institute – a two-day teaching workshop for community college STEM faculty; b) Joint Engineering Program – a consortium of 28 community college engineering programs all over California to align curriculum, improve teaching effectiveness, improve the engineering transfer process, and strengthen community college engineering transfer programs; c) Creating Alternative Learning Strategies for Transfer Engineering Programs – a collaborative program that aims to increase access to engineering courses for community college students through online instruction and alternative classroom models; and d) California Lower-Division Engineering Articulation Workshop – to align the engineering curriculum. In addition to describing the development and implementation of these programs, the paper will also provide details on how they have contributed to increasing the interest, facilitating the entry, improving the retention and enhancing the success of underrepresented minority students in engineering, as well as contributing to the strengthening of the community college engineering education pipeline.

Community colleges provide an important pathway for many prospective engineering graduates, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups. However, due to a lack of facilities, resources, student demand and/or local faculty expertise, the breadth and frequency of engineering course offerings is severely restricted at many community colleges. This in turn presents challenges for students trying to maximize their transfer eligibility and preparedness. Through a grant from the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program (NSF IUSE), three community colleges from Northern California collaborated to increase the availability and accessibility of a comprehensive lower-division engineering curriculum, even at small-to-medium sized community colleges. This was accomplished by developing resources and teaching strategies that could be employed in a variety of delivery formats (e.g., fully online, online/hybrid, flipped face-to-face, etc.), providing flexibility for local community colleges to leverage according to their individual needs. This paper focuses on the iterative development, testing, and refining of the resources for an introductory Materials Science course with 3-unit lecture and 1-unit laboratory components. This course is required as part of recently adopted statewide model associate degree curricula for transfer into Civil, Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing engineering bachelor's degree programs at California State Universities. However, offering such a course is particularly challenging for many community colleges, because of a lack of adequate expertise and/or laboratory facilities and equipment. Consequently, course resources were developed to help mitigate these challenges by streamlining preparation for instructors new to teaching the course, as well as minimizing the face-to-face use of traditional materials testing equipment in the laboratory portion of the course. These same resources can be used to support online hybrid and other alternative (e.g., emporium) delivery approaches. After initial pilot implementation of the course during the Spring 2015 semester by the curriculum designer in a flipped student-centered format, these same resources were then implemented by an instructor who had never previously taught the course, at a different community college that did not have its own materials laboratory facilities. A single site visit was arranged with a nearby community college to afford students an opportunity to complete certain lab activities using traditional materials testing equipment. Lessons learned during this attempt were used to inform curriculum revisions, which were evaluated in a repeat offering the following year. In all implementations of the course, student surveys and interviews were used to determine students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the course resources, student use of these resources, and overall satisfaction with the course. Additionally, student performance on objective assessments was compared with that of traditional lecture delivery of the course by the curriculum designer in prior years. During initial implementations of the course, results from these surveys and assessments revealed low levels of student satisfaction with certain aspects of the flipped approach and course resources, as well as reduced learning among students at the alternate institution. Subsequent modifications to the curriculum and delivery approach were successful in addressing most of these deficiencies.

In an effort to extend access to the lower-division engineering curriculum for non-traditional students, three community colleges from Northern California collaborated to develop resources enabling four laboratory-based engineering classes (Intro, Graphics, Circuits, and Materials) to be performed in a remote, online setting, or with limited face-to-face interactions. Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program (NSF IUSE), this work builds on prior efforts to provide online access to the lectureonly engineering classes in the lower-division transfer pattern, while also seeking to improve the efficacy of community college engineering programs facing challenges with staffing, scheduling, and fluctuating enrollments. This paper presents results from a second implementation of a oneunit Engineering Circuits Laboratory class, offered alongside the circuit theory course, which is already available in an online format. The class materials cover the use of basic instrumentation (DMM, Oscilloscope), analysis and interpretation of experimental data, circuit simulation, use of MATLAB to solve circuit equations in the real and complex domain, and exposure to the Arduino microcontroller. Results from both implementations are used to generalize outcomes between online vs. face-to-face cohorts, and are contextualized with input from student surveys and interviews on the perception, use and overall satisfaction of the course and its resources.

The California Community College system plays an important role in providing affordable and accessible education to diverse student populations by allowing them to complete all of their lower-division course work and then transfer to a four-year institution to complete a bachelor’s degree. However, the increasing divergence of the lower-division requirements among different four-year institutions and among the different fields of engineering, coupled with decreasing enrollments and resources, has forced many community colleges to cancel low-enrollment classes and high-cost programs including those in engineering. To address this issue, four community colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area developed an innovative program titled Creating Alternative Learning Strategies for Transfer Engineering Programs (CALSTEP). Funded by the National Science Foundation through the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program, CALSTEP aims to enable small-to-medium community college engineering programs to support a comprehensive set of lower-division engineering courses that are delivered either completely online, or with limited face-to-face interactions. In addition to developing and implementing curriculum materials and resources for the core lower-division engineering courses, one of the main components of CALSTEP is disseminating the curriculum widely in California community college engineering programs. This is done through the Summer Engineering Teaching Institute, which is a two-day teaching workshop that introduces community college engineering faculty to the CALSTEP curriculum, and assists faculty in implementing the curriculum and developing alternative teaching and learning strategies to increase enrollment and improve teaching effectiveness. Results of curriculum development and the implementation of the Summer Engineering Teaching Institute will be highlighted in this paper, as well as future plans to maximize the impact of the program in increasing access to engineering education among thousands of community college engineering students and strengthening engineering transfer programs in the state.

A substantial percentage of engineering graduates, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups, complete their lower-division education at a community college before transferring to a university to earn their degree. However, engineering programs at many community colleges, because of their relatively small scale with often only one permanent faculty member, struggle to offer lower-division engineering courses with the breadth and frequency needed by students for effective and efficient transfer preparation. As a result, engineering education becomes impractical and at times inaccessible for many community college students. Through a grant from the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program (NSF IUSE), three community colleges from Northern California collaborated to increase the availability and accessibility of the engineering curriculum by developing resources and teaching strategies to enable small-to-medium sized community college engineering programs to support a comprehensive set of lower-division engineering courses. These resources were developed for use in a variety of delivery formats (e.g., fully online, online/hybrid, flipped face-to-face, etc.), providing flexibility for local community colleges to leverage according to their individual needs. This paper focuses on the development and testing of the resources for an introductory Materials Science course with 3-unit lecture and 1-unit laboratory components. Although most of the course resources were developed to allow online delivery if desired, the laboratory curriculum was designed to require some limited face-to-face interaction with traditional materials testing equipment. In addition to the resources themselves, the paper presents the results of the pilot implementation of the course during the Spring 2015 semester, taught using a flipped delivery format consisting of asynchronous remote viewing of lecture videos and face-to-face student-centered problem-solving and lab exercises. These same resources were then implemented in a flipped format by an instructor who had never previously taught the course, at a community college that did not have its own materials laboratory facilities. Site visits were arranged with a nearby community college to afford students an opportunity to complete certain lab activities using traditional materials testing equipment. In both implementations of the course, student surveys and interviews were used to determine students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the course resources, student use of these resources, and overall satisfaction with the course. Additionally, student performance on assessments was compared with that of traditional lecture delivery of the courses in prior years.

The Silicon Valley and San Francisco tech region in California is growing rapidly and has an increasing need for skilled technicians with integrated abilities in electronics manufacturing, advanced R&D testing and troubleshooting, and automation and controls.This work-in-progress details the development of the SkyBayTech Electronics Technician program at Skyline Community College, a small Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the San Francisco Bay Area.Funded by the National Science Foundation's Advancing Technological Education (ATE) program, the SkyBayTech program is designed to meet current local workforce needs through hands-on and project-based learning experiences

Community college engineering transfer programs prepare a significant percentage of graduates from university engineering programs, yet face challenges from a fragmented lower division engineering core curriculum, limited scheduling options for students, and sometimes marginal enrollment patterns.In addition, most small college programs are run by one permanent faculty, making it difficult to provide lower-division engineering courses with the breadth and frequency needed for effective and timely transfer preparation.Through a