Multicultural Engineering Program
The Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP) is an academic support program designed to recruit, retain, and graduate educationally disadvantaged students in engineering, computer science disciplines. MEP builds an academic support community and provides the necessary bridges for students academic and professional success.
MEP offers an orientation class in effective learning techniques, a study center, tutoring, group study workshops, professional development and industry networking opportunities, and scholarship opportunities.
Recent Program Highlights
- MEP served over 300 Cal Poly students and 400 pre-college students from the Central Coast area.
- For the fourth year in a row, Cal Poly's Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) took 1st at the annual Design Contest hosted at the annual SHPE National Technical and Career Conference. Cal Poly SHPE teams also won 3rd and 4th place honors.
- With an 89% retention rate for first-year students, MEP hit a three-year average high comparable to the retention rate for the college as a whole.
- Cal Poly's MEP program received $80,000 from the U.C. Office of the President to offer the pre-college MESA Schools Program to low-income students.
- Cal Poly hosted the Regional MESA Day Preliminaries, which brought more than 150 students from area junior and senior high schools to campus to participate in hands-on engineering activities.
- The program partnered with Lockheed Martin on outreach at Santa Maria High School that engages students in MESA activities and hands-on projects such as building rockets and trebuchets.
- Corporate sponsored scholarships totaling more than $75,000 were awarded to approximately 30 students at the MEP Corporate Social and Academic Recognition Banquet. The event was made possible through generous contributions to MEP from ChevronTexaco, Frito-Lay, Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Intuit.
- Along with other regional universities, Cal Poly participated in a two-day MEP Leadership Workshop hosted by Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Disney Imagineering, and Frito-Lay. Attendees included executive officers of campus professional societies, including SHPE, the Society of Black Engineers and Scientists (SBES), the American Indian Society of Engineers & Scientists (AISES), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), as well as corporate representatives.
- Over 50 SHPE members participated in the NTCC conference in Orlando; SBES sent twelve members to the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) conference in Pittsburgh, and three AISES officers went to the national meeting in Charlotte, NC.
- SHPE's Advancing Careers in Engineering subcommittee provided math and science tutoring in Spanish to youngsters at a local elementary and middle school.
- Alumnus Ron Smith (EE '83) received the Black Engineer of the Year Award. Smith is vice president for Northrop Grumman's Six Sigma sector.