The University of Portland has been awarded $446,307 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to increase retention in engineering and computer science with a focus on at-risk first year and sophomore students. The University of Portland is the only Oregon university and one of nine universities and colleges nationwide to receive NSF grants as part of a public-private partnership called Graduate 10K+.
The NSF works in partnership with Intel and General Electric (GE) to stimulate comprehensive action at universities and colleges to help increase the annual number of new graduates in engineering and computer science by 10,000. This effort is funded with $10 million in donations from Intel and the GE Foundation as well as a generous personal donation from Mark Gallogly.
Shiley School of Engineering dean Sharon Jones was the principal investigator of the national grant, with co-principal investigator Tammy VanDeGrift, engineering. Engineering and computer science are fields in which industry leaders lament an inadequate supply of graduates with the knowledge and skills needed in business and industry, and they are fields in which women and minorities are chronically underrepresented. Engineering and computer science are also part of a general trend in which many undergraduates pursuing majors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields leave them entirely during their first two years in college.
Graduate 10K+ projects will operate for five years. Each of the projects has identified factors that can derail would-be engineers and computer scientists in their first or second year of undergraduate study and taken a targeted approach to addressing those factors. Other schools receiving Graduate 10K+ grants were California State University Monterey Bay, Cornell University, Merrimack College, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Syracuse University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas-Pan American, University of Washington, and Washington State University.
For more information contact the Shiley School of Engineering at 7314 or spir@up.edu.