NSF expects ERCs to disseminate their educational innovations nationally and internationally, to spread their successes as widely as possible. The NSF announcement for the ERC Program says that every ERC must, among other things:

• "Develop a team-based, research-inspired, and industrial practice-oriented culture for the education of graduate and undergraduate students. [ERCs] enrich education at the university, precollege, and practitioner levels by integrating their research findings and knowledge of cognitive science into new courses, course modules for insertion into existing courses, and new degree programs or degree options, where appropriate. All ERCs must evaluate their curricular contributions and disseminate those that are successful."
  
• "Have educational and research outreach programs involving college and precollege level students and their faculty and teachers in the ERC's research and education programs. The purpose of precollege outreach is to motivate students to study engineering and to bring engineering concepts into precollege classrooms by involving their teachers in research."

It is by these means that a center can contribute to the reform of science and math education at all levels and help to bring more students into the pipeline for engineering.

Transferring these curricula and methods successfully, so that they take root and bear increasing fruit over time, is a challenging task. By working directly with schools, other ERCs, academic institutions, and companies, in collaborative partnerships, ERCs can propagate their successes through first-hand human contact-the most effective channel for transferring educational know-how or technology. Sustained collaboration is the key to success in this part of the ERC's mission. These arrangements allow ERCs to share their best practices and thus enrich the learning experiences of students and the professional development of faculty and staff at all levels of education.

For the centers, too, these collaborations have important benefits,. They give them, and the ERC Program, a reputation for innovative excellence. They allow the centers to leverage resources and avoid "reinventing the wheel." They can help assure self-sufficiency after NSF funding ends.

This section reviews some of the most creative and successful partnerships.

4.6.1 Local Collaboration

ERCs, if they wish to have meaningful and lasting impacts, must first of all take advantage of the programs and resources that can be found closest to home-in their own local schools, communities, and universities. These activities have several advantages:

• Generally they are cheaper and easier than working with partners who are farther afield.
  
• Colleagues in the ERC and in the university at large can help identify sources of funds and expertise.
  
• Local partners are potential sources of support for the ERC education programs. (Such support can be increasingly important as the center approaches the end of its NSF funding cycle).

4.6.1.1 Collaboration Within the University

One vital secret of success for ERC education programs is to work closely with existing programs (such as in the college of engineering).

The Center for Engineered Biomaterials at the University of Washington (UWEB), for example, takes full advantage of the college of engineering's programs to prepare, recruit, and retain underrepresented minorities in engineering by working closely with the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program and the Minority Science and Engineering Program (MSEP).

The Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering (CNSE), at the California Institute of Technology, provides research fellowships to deserving undergraduates through the university's SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships) and MURF (Minority Undergraduate Research Fellowships) programs, which provide financial and housing support for students from Caltech and other institutions. Students are required to submit a progress report, abstract, and final report.

4.6.1.2 Collaboration with Community Groups, Local K-12 Schools, and Community Colleges

ERCs can play vital and satisfying parts in their local communities in reforming science and math education (and education more broadly), improving the diversity of the population drawn into science and engineering research, and enriching the scientific literacy of the general public.

ERCs are in a pivotal position to do all of these things. Their expertise and their missions give them entrée to both industry (which is impatient for reform) and the teachers and administrators who must carry it out. They are able to draw on funds-from NSF, nonprofit charitable foundations, and industry-that may seem small but can have great impact if they are used strategically to leverage other resources.

For example, the Local Educators' Network (LEN) of CNSE (a board of representatives of local schools districts) are used as advisors in developing and implementing CNSE educational products and projects for precollege and undergraduate education. A pilot project, this new network will form the nucleus of a broader program, which will support science teachers in their districts with useful tools, programs, and products to improve science education and to motivate students. The LEN concept will be expanded to help a variety of other research groups on campus whose mission requires educational outreach.

CASE STUDY:
UWEB is developing a rewarding and innovative partnership with the middle school at the African-American Academy (AAA), a public alternative K-8 school in the Seattle school district. The goal, when the project began in the winter of 2000, was to provide a group of these students-members of an ethnic group that is seriously underrepresented in science and engineering careers-with rich learning experiences that would inspire them to seek such careers. The success of that informal beginning has brought more funds and steadily expanding programs.

During the first term, students and their families were exposed first-hand to the possibilities of fulfilling careers in science and engineering. Students made a field trip to the university's engineering open house and carried out self-directed scientific research in a middle school science fair, judged by UW students and staff.

In the fall of 2001, supplemental funding from NSF made possible the launch of an after-school science and engineering club, field trips to local scientific institutions, increased science and math training for AAA teachers, and the development of a National Society of Black Engineers chapter at the school. UWEB and MESA jointly funded a half-time science specialist to support teachers.

During the winter of 2002, UWEB kit materials were used in 7th grade classrooms and in the after-school program at the AAA. A small team of girls participated with a team of women from the UW Virtual Design Center in a technology design project. The AAA Parent Teacher Association received a presentation on how parents can provide science learning experiences at home.

Spring 2002 brought the second annual middle school science fair (this time paired with a family science night for the K-5 families). Scholars from the Academy also participated in a citywide MESA math and engineering competition, and visited the University of Washington campus for both the engineering and health science open houses.

In addition, the Director of UWEB was recently awarded the Washington Research Foundation (WRF) endowed professorship in Bioengineering. Because he feels that increasing the diversity among the student population in our engineering program should be a top priority, the Director has committed to use part of the yearly funds awarded for his endowed professorship to develop a program of "WRF Biomaterials Scholars." In spring 2002, UWEB inaugurated the "Scholarship in Engineering Training in the UWEB Program" (SET-UP) for the AAA's middle school students. Eighteen SET-UP students each year (6 in the fall, 6 in winter and 6 in spring) will work closely with the Director and his staff to learn about the excitement of research and also be tutored in basic science subjects. The students are given transportation to and from the UW Campus every Friday afternoon, along with snacks, lab coats, lab notebooks, and a $250 check and framed certificate of graduation upon completing the program.

CNSE also supports the Caltech Precollege Science Initiative-a long-established and wide-ranging program to enhance science and math teaching in local middle schools and high schools, drawing on the energies of Caltech's scientists and engineers. CNSE in particular funds a postdoctoral fellow to develop software and curriculum materials, and has funded an effort to equip a pilot science lab and to permit teachers to use simulation and data-analysis software with an entire classroom of students. Now confined to grades K-6, it is being extended to grades 7-10. By integrating mathematics and science and stressing the use of computers, the program expects that all students will progress through algebra and geometry by grade 10.

Links with community colleges are another very promising channel for partnership with the community. For example, UWEB has established a partnership with Seattle Central Community College to conduct two programs, Research Experience for Community College Students and Research Experience for High School Teachers. Both will be initiated in Summer 2003. See section 4.3.3 for other examples of community college partnerships.

4.6.2 Collaboration on a National Scale

ERCs by their nature have both a national and international scope, like the industries they work with. Their member companies must survey the whole world in recruiting and training the best personnel and in tracking markets and technologies.

Education programs at ERCs must reflect that scale of vision in identifying the best educational practices. Partnerships with other ERCs would seem highly promising, since the partners are sure to have parallel educational missions, and parallel problems. But institutions other than ERCs are also fertile ground.

4.6.2.1 ERC-to-ERC Collaboration

The CISST at Johns Hopkins has an ongoing collaboration with the VaNTH ERC for Bioengineering Education Technologies that is aimed at strengthening CISST's Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program, now (2002) in its second year. This relationship involves several active collaborators from VaNTH. A professor from MIT is heading up the RET teacher assessments. One of VaNTH's own RET teachers will meet with the CISST's second-year teachers and introduce new course materials in bioengineering for the K-12 student. Another VaNTH faculty member, from MIT/Harvard, serves on the strategic advisory board of the CISST ERC. Finally, an MIT graduate student on the VaNTH team is working on the CISST K-12 student outreach programs.

4.6.2.2 Collaboration With Non-ERC Institutions

The Packaging Research Center (PRC) at Georgia Tech has established education programs with a wide range of professional organizations, other universities, and the microsystems packaging industry nationally and throughout the world. This initiative has funded ten educational programs-four international and six national-over a four-year period in strategic technical areas to address the engineering students' needs as well as the professional development of practicing engineers. For example, PRC is working with the Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology (CPMT) Society of the IEEE to develop distance learning suited to the industry's fast-moving needs. The PRC pioneered the first educational sessions at the International IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), with graduate and undergraduate education sessions. The conference selects and funds several different education programs each year. The goals are to:
1) achieve innovative curriculum developments to address the needs of packaging students and working professionals, and
2) implement shared or multimedia courses, modules, simulations, and/or virtual labs.

CNSE has launched an innovative program with a neighboring art institute. The frontiers of art meet the frontiers of engineering design at a new collaboration of CNSE, Caltech, with the Art Center College of Design, also in Pasadena. Over a year's time six contemporary artists will explore the knowledge and the technology resources of CNSE. The results of this year-long collaboration will be documented in NEURO, an exhibition and publication scheduled to begin on both campuses in April 2003.

Undergraduate research fellowships in microelectronic packaging are the goal of a new partnership of the PRC working with the International Microelectronics and Packaging Society (IMAPS). The team has designed and developed a national fellowship program in microelectronics packaging. The goal is to expose undergraduate students, who have taken some fundamental courses in physics, chemistry, and engineering to system-level studies of microelectronics and packaging technologies and to give students an industry perspective, leading to careers in the industry. The core of the program involves student in research projects at any of 200 participating U.S. universities. Students would then participate in the annual IMAPS Technical Symposium and Exhibition, where they would present their research findings, attend one or more short courses, take a special packaging tutorial, and participate in a student/industry panel discussion. Over the past two years, seven students have participated. All commented favorably about the program as a means of professional development.

4.6.2.3 Collaboration with Industry

Collaboration with industry is the core of the ERC's educational program. Industry members are expected not only to serve on the center's industrial advisory board and transfer knowledge, plans, and technology, but also-according to NSF's ERC program announcement-to "provide instructors, advisors, mentors, and faculty and student internships."

Working with industry helps the education director/coordinator find students jobs and industrial internships.

For faculty and students, the partnership brings knowledge of industry needs and perspectives. For the industry partner, the goals are late-breaking news of science and technology; direct interaction with students; and the chance to work with, and possibly recruit, highly trained and motivated ERC students and graduates. Industry and ERCs must cooperate closely to tailor programs that meet the interests and needs of the students, faculty, and industrial members of the ERC.

Working with industry to develop education programs is one of the most challenging tasks of the education coordinator/director. It requires detailed consultation and coordination with the center's industrial liaison and key representatives of the industry partners and the ERC faculty, to find out what companies want and need. This coordination in turn requires awareness of technical and market trends in the relevant industries.

Education programs at ERCs offer rich opportunities for interactions of faculty and students with industrial researchers, which may include mentoring, internships, co-advising on theses and doctoral programs, recruitment, employment, visiting scientist program, seminars, workshops, and presentations. (The details of this relationship are reviewed throughout this chapter.)

4.6.3 International Initiatives

Research and technology development are increasingly international enterprises. Education programs, if they are to give students the tools for productive and fulfilling careers, must reflect this trend. NSF, for example, has encouraged ERCs to increase international experiences in REU programs. A growing number of ERCs have launched international internship programs, augmenting financing of students from international institutes.

4.6.3.1 Programs Involving Graduate Students

The VaNTH ERC in Bioengineering Educational Technologies has established a consortium for exchanges of student industrial interns and academic and industrial expertise in biotechnology and bioengineering education with an alliance of universities and trade organizations in Niedersachsen, Germany.

Caltech's CNSE also has an ongoing collaboration with the Center for Neural Computation (CNC) at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (a PhD program focusing on understanding computation in neural and neural-like architectures). Individual CNSE laboratories and labs at the Hebrew University as well as visiting graduate students strengthen ties between the two programs.

The Georgia Tech/Emory Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues (GTEC) has presented short courses in cutting-edge tissue engineering research in collaboration with the various institutions overseas, including the Smith & Nephew Research Centre, York, UK; the University of Limerick and Trinity College, Dublin; and the National University of Singapore.

4.6.3.2 Programs Involving Undergraduate Students

Providing undergraduates with overseas research and education experiences presents management and logistics challenges, but these opportunities will help attract talented students to the center. Since there are so many REU programs, the students are often beginning sophomores or juniors and may be interested in multiple REU experiences. Such students might be the best candidates for international programs.

The Particle Science and Technology, at the University of Florida, for example, participated in the first NSF-French REU program in 1997. The program has since grown to include Holland and Australia, in addition to France. In 2001, four students were sent to conduct research at the Ian Wark Institute, University of South Australia, and the Technische Universiteit Delft, the Netherlands.

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