Engineering ambassadors network: Progress in year 3 on creating a national network of ambassadors

Abstract

To solve today's engineering challenges, we need a wide range of solutions, which can be realized only by having enough engineers with diverse and strong technical backgrounds. Workforce studies have shown that the number of students being educated in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) cannot meet projected demands.1 Also, the current enrollments in engineering are not diverse, especially among women, blacks, and Hispanics.2 On another issue, a survey of engineers in industry indicates a compelling need for engineers to have strong communication skills.3 The Engineering Ambassadors Network addresses these challenges. The Engineering Ambassadors Network is a collaboration of professional development programs for undergraduate engineering students with an outreach mission to middle and high schools. The development mission is to enrich the communication and leadership skills of engineering undergraduates through academic programs. The outreach mission is to attract a diverse population of middle and high school students into engineering. In short, the Engineering Ambassador Network places the right messenger (engineering undergraduates with advanced presentation skills) with the right message (messages about engineering from Changing the Conversation4) in front of middle and high school students. This paper describes progress on the expansion of the Network during 2015 and plans for continued expansion in 2016. Support for this work comes from a grant by the National Science Foundation.5 In addition, our efforts continue to be influenced by our participation in the NSF I-Corps workshop.6 This paper begins with a discussion of how the NSF I-Corps continues to influence the Engineering Ambassadors Network. Next, we discuss the onsite and online training for Engineering Ambassadors. After that, the paper describes efforts in 2015 to assess the effect of the Engineering Ambassadors Network, especially the effects of the training and outreach on the Ambassadors themselves. Finally, this paper provides a summary of what occurred in 2015 and what we plan for 2016.