The Changing Role of Professional Societies for Academics

This research paper describes how professional societies provide services to their members with a focus on the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). Professional societies fulfill many roles for their members. For underrepresented groups, the different roles become more important. Despite increasing numbers of women and other underrepresented groups in engineering academia, retention rates of women are still below the national average. Professional societies such as the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) may close the retention gap through community building. Not only do professional societies provide opportunities for networking and career building, but they also provide affirmation that there are others in similar roles. Although there are financial and time constraints to becoming active within a professional society not affiliated with one’s technical area, when academics feel that their involvement is valuable to their career development they will invest necessary time and money into the professional society. Similarities exist between how professional societies retain/attract faculty from underrepresented groups and how universities accomplish the same goal. This research paper focuses on how one professional organization, SWE, is providing opportunities to women in academia that include professional development, recognition/awards, networking, leadership development, and career advancement. In the past, SWE has been viewed as a non-technical professional society. However, SWE is uniquely positioned to provide a community that transcends the organizational boundaries by encompassing technical, service, and professional development areas for women in academia that is inclusive, collaborative, and supportive as well as connected to industry, government and academia on multiple levels

The Faculty Notebook, December 2006

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

FY 2011 Division of Research Annual Report

Division of Research\u27s annual report for fiscal year 2011.https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/research_reports/1000/thumbnail.jp

Focal Spot, Winter 2004/2005

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/focal_spot_archives/1098/thumbnail.jp

Strengths and obstacles for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area: The Spanish case

Trabajo presentado a la International Conference on Engineering Education & Research celebrada del 23 al 28 Agosto de 2009 en Seul (Corea del Sur).Quality assurance and accreditation in higher education are a priority aim in the convergence process to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Although the majority of European universities are working around these issues, there exist diverse tensions between the national legislation, accreditation and quality assurance, both in internal and external contexts. Spanish Higher Education Institutions must ensure the fulfillment of the goals related to their different degree programs, in a context of continuous improvement. This paper presents the evolution, some examples and the more recent trends related to quality assurance and accreditation in Spain. It comments some instruments that have been developed by the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain (ANECA), like the guidelines developed in the AUDIT program whose purpose is to provide guidance in designing internal quality assurance systems.Peer reviewe

Exciting Young Students In Grades K-8 About STEM Through An Afterschool Robotics Challenge

In this paper, we describe the successful implementation of an afterschool LEGO robotics program for elementary and middle school students that is annually offered by the Whitacre College of Engineering at Texas Tech University. Three events are held on campus: the kickoff, a trial run, and the competition, spread over a period of eight weeks. In between the events, participants design their LEGO robots at the school, mostly during afterschool clubs. Through our program, we broaden the participation in hands-on robotics tasks which apply STEM concepts to groups that otherwise might not have the opportunity. Success factors of our implementation are the flexibility of the implementation at the local level, the inclusion of engineering students as mentors and volunteers, and the low cost for organizers and participants. We provide evidence that we have reached a diverse student population in grades K-8 and positively changed their attitudes toward STEM, then we report the benefits that teachers see in regular participation in the event. Finally, we describe the benefit of involving engineering undergraduate students as mentors and volunteers.

Bringing the Outside World In: Using Mixed Panel Assessment of Oral Presentations with Electrical and Electronic Engineering Students

Engineering students have been portrayed as having poor oral communication skills despite oral communication competence being a key factor in future career success. With the aim of equipping students with attributes identified as important for Engineering graduates this paper presents a research project carried out at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China in the Division of Science & Engineering with Electrical and Electronic with undergraduate students, focusing on the use of a mixed specialist and non-specialist audience for students’ end of semester oral presentations assessment. It is known that oral presentations are an important academic genre developing communication skills and confidence in students but it is an area which has been found to be lacking in traditional engineering courses. The innovation of the mixed panel was to help prepare students for life after university by giving them experience of pitching technical material appropriate to the knowledge of the audience, which is something they will have to do when working in companies or on projects. This paper outlines the experience from the perspective of the assessors from different disciplines who were interviewed to determine what they were looking for in the presentations. It will also review the experience of the students themselves, based on a survey which considered the impact the mixed audience had on their presentation preparation in terms of language, presenting skills and content. This innovation in assessment encourages multi-disciplinary thinking in students and the impact of audience on presentation content and delivery is something which could be explored across different academic fields

Selecting and forming design teams

This paper explores the use of aptitude tests for selecting students for Design Engineering programmes. The latest ideas and theories are then explored regarding the usefulness of personality type instruments such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II (KTS II) as tools for forming balanced Design teams. The popularity of ‘Design’ programmes in the UK and overseas has been matched by the difficulty in recruiting to conventional ‘Engineering’ programmes. This has led to the explosive growth of programmes such as Engineering Design, Product Design and Design Engineering, which seek to exploit this demand. It is concluded that both Engineers and Designers have similar personality types, and a methodology of using personality type indicators to select and form design teams is postulated