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ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE STUDENT-LED OUTREACH OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY, MULTI-UNIVERSITY ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTER Monica Farmer Cox, Alene H. Harris, Ph.D., Neha Goel

Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations, Peabody College at Vanderbilt University/ Department of Teaching and Learning, Peabody College at Vanderbilt University/ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University

Introduction

In 1999, the VaNTH Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Bioengineering Educational Technologies became the first National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Center solely devoted to bioengineering education research. Comprised of researchers from Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Health Sciences & Technology of Harvard/ the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (HST/MIT), the VaNTH ERC was created to “unite educators and engineers, in industry and academia, to develop curricula and technologies that will educate future generations of bioengineers.” 1 To help accomplish VaNTH’s goals, students across VaNTH institutions established an outreach component for the ERC, the Student Leadership Council.

The Need for a Student Leadership Council

VaNTH SLC engineering outreach to K-12 students is needed for several reasons. First, many K-12 teachers have not studied engineering principles, and therefore do not teach these principles in their classrooms. 2 This means that most K-12 students are not exposed to engineering concepts until they enter undergraduate engineering programs. Outreach projects initiated by SLC students, however, can expose students to the field of bioengineering early. Second, the number of minorities graduating with engineering degrees is a small percentage of the overall number of minorities entering the United States labor force. 2 This means that most minority students are not pursuing degrees in engineering. Since the VaNTH ERC’s SLC is comprised of a diverse group of students, however, K-12 minority students will be involved in outreach projects led by some minority engineering students. Third, engineering outreach allows VaNTH SLC engineering undergraduate and graduate students to teach K-12 students to apply engineering principles that they themselves are being taught in undergraduate engineering classes. 3 This not only reinforces their own education, it also allows SLC students to gain experience teaching engineering at an undergraduate level with a possibility of pursuing careers in academia.

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2005, American Society for Engineering Education

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Goel, N., & King, J., & Chen, E., & Le, D., & Harris, A., & Vijaykumar, R., & Brown, C., & Cox, M. (2005, June), Establishing Effective Student Led Outreach Within Multi University, Multi Disciplinary Environments Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14807