Paper Authors

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Session ____

Recent Experience with Directed Mentoring and Laboratory Development in the Electric Power Area

Satish J. Ranade, Howard A. Smolleck, Joydeep Mitra

Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, New Mexico State University

Abstract

A Directed Mentoring program was developed during the past two years at New Mexico State University (NMSU) with local electric utility support of committed internship positions and academic-year support for students. The program’s objectives and progress were described in a paper presented in 2003. The mentoring program consists of a carefully-coordinated program of activities in which students work with faculty and receive financial support during regular semesters, with the opportunity of employment with sponsoring companies during summer or co- op phases.

A key component of the mentoring program this year has been directed student participation in the technical development of a new Electric Power Systems Laboratory. The basic components of this laboratory were assembled and have been used in both required and elective classes in electric power systems, and updated continually, beginning in the Spring 2002 semester. The students are also developing experiments, which include hardware and associated computer control, for teaching and exploring more advanced power-systems concepts, including network operation and control using power-electronic devices. These are discussed.

This paper describes the development of this laboratory capability, illustrating in particular how such a Directed Mentoring program benefits the students, their industry sponsors, and the University

1. Introduction

As indicated in a previous paper [1], a Directed Mentoring Program was established at New Mexico State University to increase the visibility of electric power engineering and attract students (primarily undergraduate) to the power area. The program was designed to address challenges that such programs face in attracting quality students, which often results from the power industry’s lack of visibility among freshmen and sophomore engineering students. A year ago, after the program had been in operation nearly three semesters, initial successes were reported [1], confirming to us the validity of the approach.

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

• Citation

• Format
  • APA
  • APA - LaTeX bibitem
  • MLA
  • MLA - LaTeX bibitem
  • Bibtex
  • EndNote - RIS

Smolleck, H. (2004, June), Recent Experience With Directed Mentoring And Laboratory Development Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--12725