A team of professors at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, in partnership with collaborators at Cal State Polytechnic University Pomona, has received a $1.6 million grant from the California Education Learning Lab — a state-funded grantmaking organization — to improve educational outcomes for community college students in engineering.
The four-year grant will support the development of solutions to facilitate a successful transition from community colleges to an engineering program at four-year universities, enhancing both academic and professional opportunities for students, while engaging industry as critical partners to help sustain internship opportunities and the program broadly.
Greg Pottie, a professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering, and Richard Wesel, associate dean of academic and student affairs and a professor of electrical and computer engineering, are co-principal investigators on the project. Their work will focus on removing barriers that hinder community college students from fully participating in the engineering workforce.
“Transfer students from community colleges have a much shorter time span assimilating into a four-year university and are often overlooked for internship and other employment opportunities,” Pottie said. “One of the project’s objectives is to bridge this gap by providing these students with much-needed resources to improve employment outcomes after graduation.”
The program will fund staff support for the California Engineering Liaison Council, an organization dedicated to improving coordination among four-year and two-year engineering programs and course articulation agreements that enable students to transfer course credits from community college to their four-year university.
Read the full story about the grant on UCLA Samueli’s website.
