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, use of educational technology, K-12 engineering outreach, and intercultural learning in experiential education abroad. As director of the Morgan Center at WPI since 2006, Demetry coordinates programs and services fostering excellence and innovation in teaching at WPI and supports course-based and program-level assessment of student learning outcomes. Many engineering units within universities continue to work toward gender parity among their undergraduates. One strategy is to offer STEM enrichment programs for young women. Experts agree that middle school is an optimal time for intervention, and numerous studies show that middle school outreach programs for girls can enhance interest in STEM. Some universities, however, may be hesitant to invest in middle school programming without evidence of long-term impact. This study shows that rising 7 th grade girls who participated in a two-week residential engineering enrichment program at a STEM-intensive university later applied as undergraduates, were admitted, and enrolled at higher rates than a control group. The experimental design of this study is relatively unusual for middle school enrichment programs and eliminates potential bias due to self-selection or a competitive application process. Ms IntroductionThe question of diversity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics has been a topic of research for close to half a century. In spite of numerous efforts to diversify STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and definite progress in some disciplines, we still have a long way to go to reach gender parity, especially in engineering. In 1998, the percentage of first year college women who entered engineering was 2.7%. In 2014, that number was 5.8% of all first year women (National Science Board, 2016).While this represents a 100% increase in the representation of women among first year engineering students, it pales in comparison to overall representation of women students in four year institutions, which reached 57% in 2014. Clearly, work to increase gender diversity in engineering must continue (Pryor, Hurtado, Saenz, Santos & Korn 2007; National Research Council, 2006).The paucity of women in engineering is particularly evident at technical institutions where most students major in a STEM discipline. As such, these institutions face a significant gender disparity in their student populations. For example, at the university where this research was conducted, approximately 96% of undergraduates are working toward degrees in engineering, the natural sciences, mathematics, or computer science. Thirty-three percent of the student body is female. These data are typical for most of our peer technological institutions with similar offerings and is consistent with national data which indicate that 25.8% of first year women intend on majoring in STEM disciplines, with a breakdown as follows: biological/agricultural sciences (15.8%), mathematics and computer science (2.1%), physical sciences (2.1%), and engineering (5.8%) (National Science Boar...

This article reports progress in an ongoing longitudinal study of Camp Reach, a two-week residential summer camp at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) for rising seventh-grade girls that emphasizes the social context of engineering and includes follow-up activities through high school. Participants in Camp Reach are chosen from the applicant pool by random lottery, creating a control group with similar attributes as program participants. Women in both groups are contacted in the years following their high school graduation to explore possible long-term differential effects of the program. The data reported in this article are for program years 2002-2006 (N=124) and focus on the study participants' perceptions of engineering and their engineering self-efficacy, and on the relative impact of various program elements from the viewpoint of alumnae. Results indicate more positive and accurate perceptions of engineering among participants of Camp Reach who sustained their contact with the program and by those in the Control group who later participated in other WPI programs. From the perspectives of study participants, the program elements with the most lasting positive impacts include returning to the program as a staff member, the use of role models, and the teamwork component of Camp Reach.

focus on student and teacher motivation, self-regulation, and identity development, with a particular interest in the role of the environment in these processes. His recent research involves the application of the Complex Dynamic Systems approach to identity and motivation, and the use of collaborative design-based interventions to promote educators' and students' motivation and identity exploration around the curriculum. AbstractIn response to the need for a diverse, highly skilled STEM workforce that can work collaboratively and communicate effectively, colleges of engineering have developed diversityfocused recruitment, retention, and outreach efforts. Many programs have also begun to emphasize technical communication skills. A national organization that integrates these priorities is the Engineering Ambassadors Network (EAN), which trains undergraduates to raise awareness of what engineers do and how they contribute to society. Typical ambassador activities include the delivery of a presentation and a hands-on activity to middle or high school students. Currently, there are an estimated 634 EAs in the United States. For many, the ambassador role begins during a large, multi-institution workshop. Post-event surveys reveal high levels of ability, confidence, and preparedness to create and deliver outreach presentations. Post-workshop interviews reveal that the training offers a platform for role identity development. The ambassador role aligns career-related motivations, resonance with messages contained in the National Academy of Engineering's Changing the Conversation report, beliefs about the mission of the EAN, and plans for fulfilling the Network's mission. After the initial training, students' role identities reflect an integration of their undergraduate engineering student role with the new role of ambassador, with the intermediary role of an effective presenter serving as a bridge. The workshop targets the need to improve students' communication proficiency, and focuses sparingly on the hands-on activity component of ambassadorship. Consequently, little is known about whether learning to create and facilitate a classroom activity impacts what ambassadorship means to students, and how these perceptions are integrated into existing ambassadorial or professional future role components of self-perceptions, goals, beliefs and action possibilities. The present study focused on two questions. 1. For students in an ambassador role during an outreach visit, what is the purpose of the hands-on activity? 2. How do ambassadors approach the development of a hands-on activity? The case study with embedded units arose from a fiveday intensive training at a small, engineering-focused university. Training involved 30 students, and a purposefully diverse sample of 8 students was obtained. All students had recently completed the national-level workshop. Post-training interviews were conducted with 4 junior and 4 senior ambassadors and elicited a narrative about the student's experiences at both the national and local tr...

Reach was one of her recent evaluation clients. Her teaching and research interests include assessment in higher education, creating a culture of evaluation use, evaluation capacity building, and educational technology. Chrysanthe Demetry, Worcester Polytechnic Institute CHRYSANTHE DEMETRY is Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Center for Educational Development and Assessment at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She co-founded Camp Reach and has co-directed the program from 1997-98 and 2003-present. Her teaching and research interests include use of educational technology, classroom formative assessment, development of intercultural sensitivity, and K-12 engineering outreach. She received the ASM Bradley Stoughton Award for Young Teachers in 2000 and WPI's Trustees' Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2002.