Project title: Success for Black Engineers
Funding Awarded: £99,450
Summary:
Attainment outcomes for Black engineers at undergraduate level, and for black students of engineering subjects at school are weaker than for their white counterparts. This project addresses this problem by providing tailored support for students at key moments in their journey. It trains students from the university’s existing Black community to become peer and Black and minority Ethnic staff to become academic mentors for these students. There is an explicit outcome for the university to increase its knowledge and understanding of the experience of Black engineering students. The project also supports wellbeing and personal development, acknowledging that academic attainment cannot be viewed separately from a student's broader experience and growth.
What does the project address?
Black students have lower attainment in key engineering subjects of maths and physics compared to their white counterparts and are less likely to achieve a 2.1 or 1st class degree outcome. This contributes to subsequent under-representation in engineering careers. This project targets school children in years 9 to 13 and undergraduate students studying engineering degrees in years 1 to 3 that are British Black (African and Caribbean) students or those that are British and identify as Black. For the school children, they will be in NRS social grades C2/D/E and have an interest in STEM subjects.
What will the students experience?
Post-16 students receive online tutoring in maths, physics, chemistry and biology, a pre-university STEM summer school and support in writing UCAS applications. Undergraduate students receive academic and peer mentoring. Mentors are current Black engineering students who are trained to support those students in the years below and Black and minority ethnic academic staff. Students can also access a bespoke set of wellbeing activities to support their wider personal success. The project is supported by partners including Equal Engineers and the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers.
What are the expected outcomes?
The five-year goal that this project contributes to is to increase numbers of Black undergraduate engineering students from 5% to 11.5%.
The intermediate outcomes are:
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Gain deeper insight into black student needs in engineering at KCL
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Increase attainment and wellbeing for black engineering students
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Increase Black applicants to KCL engineering programmes