Paper ID #48603Utilizing Project Management Principles to Administer a Graduate EngineeringRecruitment InitiativeDr. Colleen L. Coulter, Purdue University College of Engineering Dr. Colleen Coulter serves as the Assistant Director of Graduate Recruitment for Purdue University’s College of Engineering. She previously spent nearly 15 years at Purdue University West Lafayette leading innovations in recruitment, admissions, retention, and curricular design for interdisciplinary graduate programs. As a national expert in graduate recruitment, Dr. Coulter served as the inaugural president and founder of the Midwestern Association
Paper ID #47754A Collaborative Architectural/Structural Engineering Design Project: Perspectivesfrom the Engineering Students in a Co-Taught Graduate Engineering CourseMiss Isha Galaz Abdullah, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Isha Abdullah is a PhD candidate from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research interests include geometric stability of structures, the finite element modeling of structures subjected to extreme loading, and engineering education.Dr. David K Pugalee, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Dr. David Pugalee is a full professor and Director of the Center for Science
through formalized graduate student training. In this paper we will share data gatheredfrom alumni interviews conducted by students in a Research Methods and Project Executioncourse at the University of Toronto, and discuss how we have applied this directly to coursedevelopment. These alumni interviews, conducted from winter 2020 to its most recent iterationin fall 2024, yield valuable insights into the skills and mindsets that alumni identify as enablinggraduate school success, and their transferability to professional contexts. This paper will firstintroduce the course and the function of the alumni interview assignment within this coursecontext; next, it will describe the data analysis methods and results; and lastly, it will discusshow this
engineering processes. The GRGemploys AI in its lab for cyber manufacturing applications, particularly in the scalableproduction of polymer microparticles with controlled size, shape, and chemical functionalities.The six graduate students, who are doctoral students in this study, are directly involved indeveloping and applying these AI technologies to solving engineering problems by participatingin different projects.Although the GRG encompasses two distinct universities, we consider the GRG as a unifiedresearch environment where students conduct research in an interdisciplinary context as a resultof weekly meetings the graduate students and advisors participate in to discuss projects,progress, and future research directions. This weekly meeting is
teaching within the GAPS program. The findings reveal the impacts of innovativeteaching practices on professional skills development in graduate education. They show that theGAPS program participants are highly satisfied with the course’s practical skill adoption andknowledge integration. Furthermore, the increased class engagement offered an inclusivelearning environment. This experience helped the participants to enhance their professionalskills, especially in communication, teamwork, and project management. The results helpinform best practices for integrating professional skills training into graduate curricula andenhance the preparedness of students for both academic and non-academic career paths.IntroductionThe 2017 Council of Graduate
-institutional partner-ships often leads to siloed educational advancements, limiting the broader impact of promisingtools like WebTA. This project aims to address this gap by fostering a partnership between Michi-gan Technological University and Hofstra University, creating a model for how institutions cancollaboratively improve programming education through shared resources, research, and innova-tion.Practicums and their importancePracticums are common in the science and medical fields. In general, the purpose of a practicumis to assess competency in a given area. For example, as an undergraduate, one may have beenrequired to take a “practicum (exam)” in a microbiology course to demonstrate knowledge andlaboratory skills. A practicum can be considered
1980s, ‘convergence’ has become a familiar term in conversationson science and engineering policy. This was, of course, a result of multiple factors that includethe rise of ‘Big Science’ projects such as the Human Genome Project, the digital revolutionacross a range of scientific disciplines, and the growing awareness of the interconnected natureof scientific, environmental, and social challenges. While the idea of convergence offers a general framework for the generation andintegration of knowledge that needs to exist beyond disciplinary boundaries, the initial emphasiswas on the overlapping areas of technological research among nanotechnology, biotechnology,information technology, and cognitive science [8]. In 2016, the U.S. National
Teaching AssistantsAbstract:This work builds on previous efforts describing a training course for engineering GraduateTeaching Assistants (GTAs) at a large midwestern university. The course presents teaching andleadership topics as transferable skills that benefit GTAs, whether they pursue careers in industryor academia. One innovation in the course is an optional service-learning project wherein GTAsdesign and deliver educational content to a local K–12 classroom. In a previous paper, wecompared the impact of the project on GTAs who chose to participate versus those who did not.We used the TPACK framework as an assessment tool to show which knowledge domains hadbeen developed throughout the semester. GTAs' pedagogical knowledge, as well as
toensure students master the course material. Faculty members, supported by the Engineering EducationResearch Center (EERC), help students progress toward independence and mastery through learner-assisted activities and individual projects. This approach benefits minoritized students by adopting anasset-based framework [9] that identifies and builds on their strengths rather than focusing on deficits.Assessment and reflection are integral to the PLM. Student learning is tracked through portfolios, projects,and competency exams, while faculty and students continuously provide feedback to improveinstructional strategies and learning outcomes. Reflection further helps students refine their goals andadapt their approach, fostering a mindset of continuous
infostering long-term research productivity, as well as the training provided in the correspondingcourses such as project management. With regard to improving the program, the industrymentors expressed a desire for clearer expectations regarding their role in mentoring students,particularly when students return to university. A detailed analysis of the feedback provided byindustry mentors and its implications for further improving the P3 model, indeed the state ofSTEM doctoral training, are presented. The conclusions of this study are expected to have broad impact beyond the P3 model asthey provide valuable insight into the mutual benefits of industry-university partnership fordoctoral education.1. Introduction There is growing
possible future selves.”Dr. Mary Raber, Michigan Technological University Mary Raber currently serves as Chair for the Engineering Fundamentals Department in the College of Engineering at Michigan Technological University and also serves as PI and instructor for the Michigan Tech I-Corps affiliate within the Great Lakes Region I-Corps Hub. Dr. Raber teaches courses in first-year engineering, leadership, project management and innovation & design. She is a Faculty Innovation Fellow with the Stanford d.school and a Fellow with the Strategic Doing Institute. Dr. Raber also served as Chief Doing Officer for Michigan Tech’s IDEAhub, an educational innovation incubator and led a campus-wide effort to re-design the
level is defined bya person’s experiences, knowledge, and beliefs, and how these may impact their interactions andview of the world. Moving outward, the system levels explore differing aspects of thisindividual’s environment, starting with the microsystem. The microsystem is scoped to anindividual’s direct environment; this includes the various activities, roles, and interpersonalrelationships the individual may have. For a graduate student, this could include their roles incourses or research, or perhaps a prior experience with a course instructor. Following this is themesosystem, which includes connections across microsystems. For example, someone taking aclass related to a research project they are on with members of their research group
the U.S. were earned by American Indian, Black, Native Hawaiianand Other Pacific Islander, Hispanic, or multiracial women [2]. Note that while 55.5% of thedegrees were awarded to international students (41.1% to men and 13.4% to women), 17.5% ofengineering PhDs were awarded to White men, 7.1% to White women, 4.6% to Asian Americanmen, 2.1% to Asian American women, 2.6% to Hispanic men, 1.3% to Black men, 0.08% toAmerican Indian men, and 0.03% to Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander men [2].Our NSF-funded collaborative project combines an intersectional approach with organizationalscience to identify specific climates contributing to the retention and commitment of studentsfrom historically-excluded groups. We developed a scale to assess
NSF funded project dealing with communities and relationships that enable and empower faculty and students in engineering.Dr. John Ray Morelock, University of Georgia Dr. Morelock is an Assistant Professor of Practice with an emphasis on engineering education research, and the Associate Director of Educational Innovation and Impact for UGA’s Engineering Education Transformations Institute (EETI). In addition to coordinating EETI’s faculty development programming, Dr. Morelock conducts research on institutional change via faculty development, with an emphasis on innovative ways to cultivate and evaluate supportive teaching and learning networks in engineering departments and colleges. He received his doctoral degree
Paper ID #48949Cultivating Community and Confidence Through the Thesis Writers RetreatAllyce Horan, Colorado School of Mines Allyce Horan is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Department at the Colorado School of Mines and former Director of the Writing Center. Allyce’s interdisciplinary background includes a B.A. in History & French and an M.A. in History. Her current research projects include understanding how individual STEM disciplines discuss and categorize concepts of ”good” writing, methods to cultivate community for STEM graduate students, and writing across the curriculum
], and genre analysis [9] to establish a communication-focusedcommunity of practice [10]-[11] in an EER PhD program at a large, mid-western university. Bydocumenting this project in its pilot phase and the role of our unique expertise in itsdevelopment, we hope to achieve two goals: 1.) to encourage other EER programs to address andexplore the specific challenges and needs of students transitioning from engineering technicaldomain undergraduate programs to EER graduate programs; 2.) to demonstrate how EERprograms can leverage expertise of faculty from writing studies and technical communication todevelop evidence-based practices that support students’ transition.IntroductionGraduate programs within engineering education aim to help students
this operational paradigm provides doctoral studentswith the technical knowledge and skills to create research output, there is no inherent pathway inthis structure to provide students with skills to identify research topics that create additionalsocio-economic value. Some PhD students are supported as research assistants within an existinggrant-funded project and mostly work on fulfilling the established objectives of that project.Other students, who are supported as fellows or teaching assistants, might be given morefreedom to select their research topic. However, it is typically assumed that the research area ofthe PhD advisor is inherently valuable, and the PhD student operates as if the PhD advisor is theend user of the research. Students
teachingpractices. By addressing these factors, the model highlights the importance of both cultural andindividual factors in shaping teaching identity.MethodologyData CollectionThis study is part of the Gateway2STEM project, an effort aimed at making active andcollaborative learning the default method of instruction in large introductory courses in Physics,Mathematics, and CS at a public R1 university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Aspart of the project, graduate students serving as first time GTAs in these three departments attendeda two-day workshop before the start of the Fall 2023 semester. The goal of the workshop was toprovide preparation before the GTAs, most of whom had no formal teaching experience, enteredthe classroom for the
variouscharacteristics and factors impact the decision making process differently for the part-time andfull-time student populations.Overall Project Scope and Context of Current WorkThis paper is part of a much larger effort spearheaded by Dr. Diane Peters and Dr. ElizabethGross to understand all aspects of the graduate student experience; much of the literatureresulting from this project revolves around returners and direct pathway master’s students. Thesetwo groups are characterized by length of time out of undergraduate studies before attendinggraduate school. Direct pathway students are characterized as those who complete a jointbachelor-master degree or attend graduate school less than five years after their bachelor degreehas been completed. Returners are
onunderstanding these impacts is crucial for developing adaptive educational strategies that can sustainthe quality of engineering education in face of such global disruptions.Literature Review:The global outbreak of COVID-19 has brought about significant changes in higher educationworldwide, necessitating a shift from traditional face-to-face teaching to online formats. Thisunplanned transition posed unique hurdles, particularly for engineering students, who rely heavily onhands-on learning and access to specialized resources (Sukackė et al., 2022). Graduate engineeringstudents often depend on educational experiences such as collaborative projects, working withhuman subjects, and specialized equipment (Sukackė et al., 2022). The abrupt move to
the project), theauthors noted a lack of protocols and processes by which participatory action design research canbe used to document and create consensus between a faculty advisor (FA) and their graduatestudent (GS). To minimize harm to the target population, which already is severely underservedand marginalized in engineering, the authors opted to test this protocol and process amongstthemselves and document its outcomes. The research design was participatory research with acollaborative autoethnographic approach to systematically, iteratively, and critically incorporatethe knowledge, expertise, experience, propositions, and practices to deepen the experiences of theparticipants and researchers. This paper specifically focused on the
clarity on the impact of both formal and informal peer mentorship programson the well-being, community building, and sense of belonging among the graduate internationalstudents enrolled in graduate engineering programs in public universities within the U.S. [12].This study addresses the need for programs that cater to the well-being of international graduatestudents to increase retention and graduation rates. The mentorship program design and findingsfrom this study can help graduate programs prepare for the projected continued influx ofinternational students in the future [2].Literature reviewMentors play a significant role in the personal and professional development of students acrossdifferent disciplines. In several graduate programs
Paper ID #46309Advanced Microfabrication Manufacturing Course Comparison of Onlineand In-person Teaching with Hands-on Lab Component for InterdisciplinaryGraduate EducationProf. Nathan Jackson, University of New Mexico Prof. Jackson is an Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Nanoscience and Microsystems Engineering Graduate Program at University of New Mexico. He is the PI of an NSF funded Innovation and Graduate Education project focused on increasing job readiness of graduate students in the semiconductor industry. He is a member of ASEE and Senior Member of IEEE. He was awarded the Junior
, GradTrack included 26 mentors and 100 mentees. Currently, themanual process of matching mentors and mentees is time-consuming, requiring 4–8 hours ofadministrator-assigned matching per program. While tools exist for grouping students into teamsfor class projects [5], most widely used tools are commercial, fee-based, and/or are more complexthan needed. Therefore, we identified a need for a simple, open-source solution specifically formentoring structures.The purpose of this research project was to develop a streamlined method for the formation ofmentoring circles as GradTrack continues to grow, specifically by leveraging widely usedstatistical algorithms such as k-means clustering. Using data from three years of manually createdmentoring circles, we
engineering is practiced and taught: “[Being a facilitator]also opened my eyes to collaborative engineering projects and different examples within industryand education about design and engineering contextual factors and decision making.”Growing confidence in the ability to communicate sociotechnical concepts and skills was alsoexpressed by some participants who mentioned the benefits of having a repository of examples tolean on in order to confidently express the connections between social and technical elements ofengineering and design in discussion formats. A facilitator pursuing a PhD in MechanicalEngineering noted: “I think having a repertoire of several examples in my back pocket like play pump, deli slicer for pill bottles, soap
perception of their advisor's/s' work-life balance(s), research groupclimate, department climate, and culture of academia, as presented in our prior work [4]. All ofthese themes except for “culture of academia” were directly asked about in the interviewprotocol. During the second round of coding, we identified codes and sub-codes for the first fourthemes, including “advisor career advice”, which is the focus of this paper. The first authorcompleted the two rounds of coding and met weekly with the second author to discuss theresults. The first author and a graduate student also met weekly to discuss the larger project. Weall examined codes across the three authors and ultimately achieved a consensus for final codes.Results have been grouped by
Paper ID #46029Piloting the EMPOWERS Program: Inaugurating Student-Centered HolisticMentorship for STEM Practitioners in AcademiaMs. Randi Sims, Clemson University Randi is a current Ph.D. student in the department of Engineering and Science Education at Clemson University. Her research interests center around undergraduate research experiences using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Her career goals are to work as an evaluator or consultant on educationally based research projects with an emphasis on statistical analyses and big data.Sofia Brewer, Clemson UniversityLily Fender, Clemson UniversityKassidy
meeting, the Fellows attended a Welcome Reception that included the planning committee, their primary mentors, and their lab mates.PD Workshop on Social Belonging: This lunch session was based upon the work of Walton and Cohen [16]and adapted from the Project for Education Research That Scales (PERTS)[17]. The planning committee asked current graduate students from GERS and the MRSEC to submit a short, written story about a challenge they had in graduate school and how they dealt with that challenge. The FF were given the stories to read and asked to discuss which stories stood out to them and whether they would have done something differently. Then the students were asked to write their own reflection about a challenge they
self-determined behavior. "I valued engaging in scholarly Written Competence Indicates the respondent’s writing projects while in (Effectiveness and capability sense of accomplishment and graduate school." in academic writing) appreciation for developing scholarly writing skills, aligning with the competence subdimension. "By the end of graduate school, I Oral Competence Demonstrates the had developed the ability to (Proficiency in oral
Engineering at Virginia Tech and a Professor in the Department of Engineering Education where she has also served in key leadership positions. Dr. Matusovich is recognized for her research and leadership related to graduate student mentoring and faculty development. She won the Hokie Supervisor Spotlight Award in 2014, received the College of Engineering Graduate Student Mentor Award in 2018, and was inducted into the Virginia Tech Academy of Faculty Leadership in 2020. Dr. Matusovich has been a PI/Co-PI on 19 funded research projects including the NSF CAREER Award, with her share of funding being nearly $3 million. She has co-authored 2 book chapters, 34 journal publications, and more than 80 conference papers. She is