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STEP Grant Challenges and Results

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Conference

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Vancouver, BC

Publication Date

June 26, 2011

Start Date

June 26, 2011

End Date

June 29, 2011

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees

Page Count

15

Page Numbers

22.1325.1 - 22.1325.15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--19000

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/19000

Download Count

355

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Paper Authors

biography

Mary R. Anderson-Rowland Arizona State University

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Mary R. Anderson-Rowland is the PI of an NSF STEP grant to work with five non-metropolitan community colleges to produce more engineers, especially female and underrepresented minority engineers. She also directs three academic scholarship programs, including one for transfer students. An Associate Professor in Computing, Informatics, and Systems Design Engineering, she was the Associate Dean of Student affairs in the Ira a. Fulton School of Engineering at ASU from 1993 - 2004. She was named a top 5% engineering teacher for 2009 - 2010. She received the WEPAN Engineering Educator Award 2009, ASEE Minorities Award 2006, the SHPE Educator of the Year 2005, and the National Engineering Award in 2003, the highest honor given by AAES. In 2002 she was named the Distinguished Engineering Educator by the Society of Women Engineers. Her awards are based on her mentoring of students, especially women and underrepresented minority students, and her research in the areas of recruitment and retention. A SWE and ASEE Fellow, she is a frequent speaker on career opportunities and diversity in engineering.

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Armando A. Rodriguez Arizona State University

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Armando A. Rodriguez is the co-PI of the NSF METSTEP grant to work with
non-metropolitan community colleges to produce more engineers, especially female and
underrepresented minority engineers. He's the PI on two NSF S-STEM grants providing academic and career guidance to students in CSEM fields. He is a Professor of Electrical Engineering within the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU. Prior to joining ASU, he worked at MIT, IBM, AT&T Bell Laboratories and Raytheon Missile Systems. He has consulted for Eglin Air Force Base, Boeing Defense and Space Systems, Honeywell and NASA. He has authored over 190 technical papers and three engineering texts. He has given more than 60 invited presentations, including 13 plenaries. Since 1994, he has directed an extensive engineering mentoring-research program that has served over 300 students. He's an AT&T Bell Labs Fellow, Boeing A.D. Welliver Fellow, and the recipient of a 1998 White House Presidential Excellence Award for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering. He has also received numerous teaching/mentoring excellence awards. His research includes control systems, hypersonic vehicles, sustainability, low power electronic systems, and portfolio management.

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John H. Bailey Eastern Arizona College

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Dr. John H. Bailey (Jack) is the Director of the Eastern Arizona Community College METSTEP program. Jack is the engineering instructor at Eastern Arizona College. He joined Eastern’s faculty in 2006, after teaching at Prince George’s Community College, in Largo, MD. Prior to his teaching career, Jack was a Technical Director at ARINC, Inc, of Annapolis Maryland, an engineering consulting firm. Jack earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University, and a D.Sc. degree from The George Washington University in Operations Research.

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Anita Grierson Arizona State University

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Anita Grierson, Arizona State University.
Anita E. Grierson is the Director of the METS Center in the Ira A. Fulton School of
Engineering at ASU. She is now in her third year of guiding the activities of the METS Center and overseeing its staff of primarily transfer students. Ms. Grierson has over 10 years corporate experience in Program Management, Business Development, and Biomechanical Engineering, with products as diverse as air bag systems for helicopters, body armor, and orthopedic implants. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1990, her Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University in 1994, and a Masters in Business Administration from Arizona State University in 2000.

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Rakesh Pangasa Arizona Western College

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Pakesh Pangasa is the PI of the Arizona Western College METSTEP program. After practicing industrial R&D management in cement, concrete, and construction industries for 14 years at the Cement Research Institute of India, he switched, in 1986, to teaching, training, and consulting. Since then he has been engaged in teaching mathematics and engineering at Arizona Western College and has taught at all the three state universities in Arizona. He has also taught undergraduate and graduate students in business administration, information systems, operations management, and strategic management for Northern Arizona University and for Webster University at their campuses in Yuma, Denver, Vienna and Shanghai. He has also worked as commissioning engineer for FLSmidth training operators at a few plants of American Electric Power, and as Senior Computer Systems Analyst for Yuma proving Grounds on Future Combat Systems Software Interoperability. In his efforts towards motivating high school students to explore engineering, he has launched the first Yuma community robotic team for regional competition. His research interests and passion include building strong relations amongst academics, research and industry. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from Panjab University in 1971, and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi in 1986.

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Clark Vangilder Central Arizona College

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Clark VanGilder, Central Arizona College. Clark Vangilder is the PI of the Central Arizona Community College METSTEP program. Clark is a former Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plant Operator prior to receiving a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics from Grand Canyon University in 1995 and a Masters Degree in Physics from Arizona State University in 2004. Central Arizona College hired Clark in 2008 to take over the Physics program as well as resurrect the pre-engineering program in conjunction with two separate grant opportunities, one including the exploratory STEP grant that has evolved into METSTEP. The introductory design course has been articulated in that time frame and successfully conducted four times now. Additionally, Clark has created new coursework in engineering programming (numerical methods) that are presently in articulation, with more courses in the works with an aim to creating an engineering associates degree program.

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Phil Blake McBride Eastern Arizona College

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Phil McBride is the PI of the Eastern Arizona Community College METSTEP
program. Phil has taught chemistry at Eastern Arizona College since 1991. He served as Science Division Chair from 2004 - 2007 and has served as Dean of Instruction since January of 2007. He supervises the divisions of Science, Mathematics, Nursing, and Fine Arts, oversees the Discovery Park Campus, and coordinates the Summer School and College for Kids program. He has served as the Arizona Science Teachers Association Region V director for the past 6 years and currently serves as the Membership Secretary. He is also a member of the American Chemical Society, Two-Year College Chemistry Consortium, and the National ScienceTeachers Association. In 2008, he was awarded the Rocky Mountain Region College Educator Award for Excellence in Teaching from the American Chemical Society. He has been instrumental in helping find means for K-12 teachers to attend professional development conferences in science. Phil is currently preparing a summer science camp for high school
students this year in an effort to excite students about science and lead them to further their education in a STEM field. He is an annual presenter at the Tri-County Teachers Academy workshops. Phil has presented papers at numerous chemistry conferences across the nation and is a strong advocate for STEM education wherever he goes. Phil received a B.S. in Education with a major in Chemistry from the University of Arizona in 1986, a Masters Degree in the Teaching of Physical Sciences in 1989 from Northern Arizona University, and in 2003, he received his Ph.D. in Chemistry with a dual emphasis in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Education from Miami University.

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Richard A. Hall Jr. Cochise College

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Richard (Bubba) Hall is the PI of the NSF Cochise Community College METSTEP program. He is the Dean of Mathematics and Science at Cochise College. He has worked with the ASU METS program since the Fall of 2007 to build a pathway for Cochise College engineering students to Arizona State. Under his supervision, Cochise College has developed an Associate of Science degree in Engineering along with introductory and programming courses for engineering. Dr. Hall also plays an important support role in the Running Start program. Most importantly, a team of math, science, and engineering instructors has been formed to help lead all engineering efforts at Cochise. JoAnn Deakin, Feng Yang, and Kristy Ritter have all played important roles in the progress made up to this point.

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Abstract

STEP Grant Challenges and Results: Motivated Engineering Transfer Students From Non-Metropolitan Community CollegesIn Fall 2008, a National Science Foundation (NSF) STEP grant award was made to support acollaboration between a Research I University and five rural (non-metropolitan) communitycolleges (CC). The grant followed a smaller NSF grant which supported the exploration of afour-year school working with three rural CCs.This paper will describe the challenges, lessons learned, and results of the program for its firstyear and a half of existence. The primary challenge was known before the project began: onlyone school is within an hour’s drive of the four-year institution. The other four schools are threeto four hours distant. In spite of this, strong collaborations and interactions are occurringbetween the schools. The paper will describe participation in high school recruitment,presentations in classrooms, student feedback from class room visits, and the usefulness of beingavailable at a table in the student union so that students can come and ask questions. The paperwill also discuss the changes that have taken place in the community colleges to better supporttheir programs in engineering and computer science.In other aspects of the project, we will report on the changes and improvements in the MotivatedEngineering Transfer Student (METS) Center at the university, the Academic ScholarshipSuccess Workshop, an encompassing website, and steps being taken to improve the transferprocess in engineering and computer science.This project is leveraged by three S-STEM grant programs. In the past two years, the retentionand graduation rates of the upper division transfer students have been 95%. This rate is incontrast with the overall 70% rate for upper division transfer males and 60% rate for upperdivision transfer females. The engineering and computer science enrollment in the communitucolleges is up for Fall 2010 and the number of transfer students at the university has increasedover 50% from Fall 2009.

Anderson-Rowland, M. R., & Rodriguez, A. A., & Bailey, J. H., & Grierson, A., & Pangasa, R., & Vangilder, C., & McBride, P. B., & Hall, R. A. (2011, June), STEP Grant Challenges and Results Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC. 10.18260/1-2--19000

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