Mentoring to Build the NSF ATE Community
- Conference
- Location
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Minneapolis, MN
- Publication Date
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August 23, 2022
- Start Date
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June 26, 2022
- End Date
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June 29, 2022
- Conference Session
- Page Count
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5
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--41982
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/41982
- Download Count
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155
Abstract
The Mentor Up project supports a mentoring program to guide prospective principal investigators in crafting and submitting a proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program. This project aligns with the ATE program objective to provide leadership opportunities for faculty at two-year institutions and also supports the national priority of educating the skilled technical workforce for the industries that keep the United States globally competitive.
In the project’s first year, teams were recruited from 16 community and technical colleges, with the team members including two technician-education faculty from the institution, together with grant writers, administrators, or other key contributors from the institutions. Specific activities included virtual mentoring and webinars as well as a virtual 2.5-day workshop where two-year faculty who are teaching technician education learned the strategies and NSF requirements for writing and submitting competitive proposals.
The key outcome of this project is an increase in the number of competitive NSF ATE proposals submitted by community college faculty. The project proposal writing component and mentoring by experienced principal investigators increases the knowledge and skills of community college STEM faculty at institutions with minimal grant activity, thereby strengthening the personal and institutional ability to pursue other proposal based projects. Participants learn strategies for institutional investment in pursuit of NSF ATE program grant funding and increase project team expertise through a series of post-workshop webinars.
The project targets a diverse group of urban, suburban, and rural institutions and provide opportunities for participation of faculty and students who are typically underrepresented in technician programs, such as minority populations and women. The project team seeks to imbue lessons learned from the previous three workshops and mentoring programs to increase the success of each cohort. The team provides support to mentee faculty for up to two years in an effort to give them the best chance to submit a successful proposal. In the 2021 NSF ATE submission, 14 of 16 colleges submitted proposals.
The goal of this project is to help participants address many of challenges faced by community college faculty in preparing and submitting NSF ATE grant proposals and that the NSF ATE program will experience growth in community college participation. Program participants will serve as change agents for their institutions with the innovative ideas and teaching pedagogies developed in their mentored projects. For community colleges awarded ATE grants, this project will result in improved student access to education and acquisition of skills needed to enter the workforce as STEM graduates whose contributions will advance the nation’s economic goals for meeting emerging workforce needs.
Wosczyna-Birch, K. (2022, August), Mentoring to Build the NSF ATE Community Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41982
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