SPIRIT: Scholarship Program Initiative via Recruitment, Innovation, and Transformation

Information

• NSF Award
• 1355872

Owner

• Western Carolina University

• Award Id

  1355872

• Award Effective Date

  6/1/2014 - 10 years ago

• Award Expiration Date

  5/31/2018 - 6 years ago

• Award Amount

  $ 625,179.00

• Award Instrument

  Standard Grant

The United States faces a national need to increase substantially the number of American scientists and engineers. This project at Western Carolina State University addresses this need by providing academic and financial support to students pursuing engineering and engineering technology degrees at that institution. This initiative is called SPIRIT: Scholarship Program Initiative via Recruitment, Innovation, and Transformation. SPIRIT creates a focused approach to the recruitment, retention, education, and placement of engineering and technology students with academic talent and financial need. This program helps to develop domestic, workforce ready, engineers by providing scholarships that will assist qualified SPIRIT scholars to reduce their financial burden for obtaining an undergraduate education. The project promotes diversity in STEM fields, specifically for lower income students in STEM.<br/><br/>The project will utilize student-centered strategies to achieve goals for student retention and success in engineering and engineering technology majors. The educational program focuses on problem-based learning communities that nurture technical skills and professional skills. Students will be recruited into horizontally and vertically integrated cohorts that are developed into a Project Based Learning (PBL) community. The community will be characterized by extensive faculty mentoring, fundamental and applied research, hands-on design projects, and industry engagement. The horizontal integration method creates sub-cohorts with same-year students from different disciplines such as electrical engineering or mechanical engineering working in an environment that reflects how engineers work in the real world. The vertical integration method will enable sub-cohorts from different years to work together on different stages of projects in a PBL setting. The objectives of the SPIRIT program are to ensure an interdisciplinary environment that enhances technical competency through learning outcomes. These outcomes address improvements in critical skills such as intentional learning, problem solving, teamwork, project management, interpersonal communications, and leadership.

• Program Officer

  Karen Crosby

• Min Amd Letter Date

  6/2/2014 - 10 years ago

• Max Amd Letter Date

  9/15/2015 - 9 years ago

• ARRA Amount

• Name

  Western Carolina University

• City

  Cullowhee

• State

  NC

• Country

  United States

• Address

  440 HFR Admin Bldg

• Postal Code

  287239022

• Phone Number

  8282273174

• First Name

  Yanjun

• Last Name

  Yan

• Email Address

  yayan@wcu.edu

• Start Date

  9/15/2015 12:00:00 AM

• First Name

  Paul

• Last Name

  Yanik

• Email Address

  pyanik@wcu.edu

• Start Date

  6/2/2014 12:00:00 AM

• First Name

  Sudhir

• Last Name

  Kaul

• Email Address

  skaul@email.wcu.edu

• Start Date

  6/2/2014 12:00:00 AM

• First Name

  Guanghsu

• Last Name

  Chang

• Email Address

  gchang@wcu.edu

• Start Date

  6/2/2014 12:00:00 AM

• End Date

  09/15/2015

• First Name

  Chip

• Last Name

  Ferguson

• Email Address

  cferguson@email.wcu.edu

• Start Date

  6/2/2014 12:00:00 AM

• Text

  S-STEM:SCHLR SCI TECH ENG&MATH

• Code

  1536

• Text

  UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION

• Code

  9178

• Text

  SCIENCE, MATH, ENG & TECH EDUCATION