Program Overview

Program Overview

The Becoming Engaged Engineering Scholars (BEES) program is an NSF S-STEM project designed to address the challenges of recruiting and retaining academically talented, low-income students from diverse backgrounds into undergraduate engineering programs.

Program Goals

The primary goal of the BEES program is to ensure that engineering programs offer an equitable pathway into engineering careers, particularly for low-income, academically talented students.

Program Structure

The program provides a systematic sequence of academic, social, and career support services specifically designed to enhance the success of engineering students during their first two years of undergraduate study. This includes:

• A one-week bridge program prior to the start of their first year
• A multi-level mentoring system that includes internal and external mentors
• Engagement in multiple curricular and co-curricular activities, including an engaged engineering project experience
• A first-year seminar focused on engineering and society

Research Focus

The project devotes significant resources to studying the impact of the proposed activities, seeking to answer:

• How and to what extent the program activities support retention through the end of the 2nd year of engineering study
• How and to what extent the program activities impact students' self-efficacy, identity, and sense of belonging

Program Details

The BEES program is implemented at Western Washington University (WWU), which has faced unique challenges in recruitment and retention, particularly in the first two years for pre-engineering students. The program builds on the success of prior S-STEM awards in other disciplines at WWU.

Conference Publication

The program details and initial insights were presented at the 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On Line, June 22-26, 2020, in a conference paper titled "S-STEM Becoming Engaged Engineering Scholars (BEES): Insights From Year 1."