Name: Engineering Technology Programs Widening Pathways Into The Profession
Uploaded: 2026-06-02T13:51:24.745Z
Duration: 1 h 3 min
Description: Engineering Technology Programs Widening Pathways Into The Profession

Transcript for "Engineering Technology Programs Widening Pathways Into The Profession": Welcome. My name is Alexandra Sharp. I am the director of education and career development at the American Society for Engineering Education, ASEE, and I'm very happy to be working with Acuity Insights on our second partnered webinar, engineering technology programs, widening pathways into the profession. I'm gonna turn it over now to our moderator, Kelli Doerr. Take it away, Kelly. Thanks so much, Alex. Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar on how engineering technology can help widen pathways into the engineering profession. Before we begin, I'd like to start this presentation by acknowledging and honoring the lands on which we currently live, work, and play. This webinar has brought people from across Turtle Island together, which is the name the indigenous tribes used to refer to North America. This land acknowledgment is only a very small step in honoring the history, present day impact that colonialism, genocide, and forced removal from their lands has and continues to have on indigenous people. We know that it's important to stress that true change and improvement will not come from acknowledgment such as these, but from a true commitment to genuine learning, building honest relationships, and from amplifying the voices of these communities. With that, I would like to, again, welcome you and thank you for joining us today. My name is Kelly Doerr. I am cofounder and VP of science and innovation at Acuity Insight and associate professor at McMaster University in Canada. I am your host for today's discussion, and Acuity is so excited to host this webinar along with ASEE. I was fortunate enough to be at the dean's meeting last week in San Diego, the EDI meeting, and I was in so many discussions about what to do to widen pathways and why widening pathways is so important for the future of the engineering profession, including thinking about the skills that we need in the profession and how we're setting our students up for success, in the future, both in a job market, but also in in their career pathways and trajectories. We heard from industry leaders at the conference as well about bringing in trainees who, you know, have the academic metrics that we need, but also the creativity, the problem solving, the teamwork, and dynamic learning skills, not just for today, but the skills that we need for tomorrow. Looking at these attributes allows you to truly recognize somebody's full potential in engineering and the many different roles that they're going to serve. We know students take a lot of jobs after graduation and thinking broadly about how they're going to be successful, not just, passing their their math courses or other things, but how they're gonna actually engage in the profession. Acuity is thrilled to be hosting this session today. Our academic admissions assessment, Casper gives insights into how applicants, are going to be and perform not just in training, but in their future careers beyond just their academic metrics. So academic metrics are important, but don't predict everything. The Casper assessment assesses for skills like problem solving, critical thinking, empathy, resilience, adaptability, which we know result in better success long term and helping find everybody's full potential. With that, when we look at engineering, the most obvious scope that comes to mind is our traditional, programs and somewhat newer engineering programs that reside in an engineering school. But there is a stream of engineering, engineering technology that itself widens pathways into engineering. Engineering technology programs with their focus on applied knowledge provide an opportunity for wider groups of aspiring engineers to build a career in engineering, supporting the profession, as well as expanding our ideas about what should our pathways be into engineering. Without further ado, I would love to introduce our two speakers for today, to join me on screen and turn on their cameras. Thank you so much. They're going to be sharing their insights about how engineering technology creates opportunities to widen pathways into engineering and the strategies that they've used in their programs. So allow me to introduce you to doctor Keith Johnson. He is chair of the Department of Engineering Technology and VP of Equity and Inclusion at East Tennessee State University. Keith earned a BS and an MS in industrial technology at North Carolina A and T State University and a PhD in industrial technology from Ohio State University. He studied as a fellow at the TBR Maxine Smith Fellows Program, and is currently active in the CIEC general conference remaining active in teaching service and research and was influential in creating a joint engineering degree program with Tennessee Technical University and represents, East Tennessee State University nationally. Over the years, Keith has been an active member in many institutional advisory boards and committees. He's also in principal investigator on state and federally funded grants among other achievements under his leadership. Several minority faculty recruitment grants were secured serving to assist in the creation of a number of minority student earning doctorates. Along with Keith today, is doctor Maniyan Ramkumar, dean at the doctor k Rochester Institute of Technology. A graduate of the PSG College of Technology in India, Ram holds a master's degree in manufacturing engineering from RIT and a doctorate degree in systems science from SUNY Binghamton. After receiving his master's degree, he served as an adjunct faculty member in the department of manufacturing engineering technology. He's also been recognized at by RIT sponsored research office as a principal investigator millionaire, a designation given to a faculty that has generated funding of $1,000,000 or more. His research has been in the area of manufacturing automation, systems integration, and and electronics packaging and surface mount technologies. These areas gave rise to the Center for Electronics Manufacturing and Assembly, which he founded in 1995. I don't know about you, but reading those introductions, I know we're gonna have a great conversation from these two illustrious guests. I'm thrilled to have Ram and Keith with us to discuss the challenges facing both the engineering profession and engineering technology departments as well as their experiences with their initiatives at their own institutions to widen access into the profession and create diverse pathways for the future of, engineering. Gonna give you a brief overview of the format today. So we will have a panel discussion, with both Keith and Ram on some of the challenges that we're seeing. And so we'll give them a chance to both answer some of these key questions that we have. Then I'm gonna turn it over to each of them individually for about twelve minutes to talk about their own institution and their strategies and their activities and what they're doing so you can learn and share from what they're doing as well as sharing their top three takeaways. We'll have time for q and a at the end. So feel free as our speakers are talking to use the chat, the function to put in some questions, put in some queries that you might have that we can get to at the end of the day. So with that, let's move on to the challenges section of what we're going to talk about. Keith, I will be asking you to answer this question first, and then we'll turn it over to Aram. Let's start with our first question. So the world is really rapidly changing, and the problems engineers are tackling are increasingly complex and open ended. They are what we think about as wicked problems or problems with conflicting and poorly defined goals that feel sometimes a little unsolvable like climate change or energy. More than ever, engineers need to be able to bring diverse perspective to solve these problems. So what are some of the challenges facing the engineering profession around this, and what skills do they need to help solve these problems? So, Keith, let me turn it over to you first. K. Well, thank you, for for this question. I think one of the there obviously, I'll start by saying there are many challenges out there, facing the engineering profession and and trying to get diverse perspectives. I think one of the biggest challenges is the the lack of diversity in engineering in engineering workforce, particular in leadership roles. You know, this lack of of of diverse perspectives and ideas, you know, can really place a limit on innovation and creativity. So I strongly believe that diverse perspectives really breeds, innovation. So when I think about, you know, what should our graduates have upon graduating, they should have a, first of all, a fundamental knowledge base of understanding. So if they're in electrical, then obviously ACDC is important. So whatever engineering discipline or or technical field they're in, they have to have an understanding of a of a technical, base. Also, they have to, have some form of leadership skills. Now, obviously, they may not get that specifically of all of that in a classroom, but through extracurricular activities that they participate in while they're experiencing, you know, universities. But but being in a leadership role will give them some of those skill sets that they need. They they also need to be, critical thinkers. They need to be problem solvers. And I think, when students get to a point where they're approaching graduation, that's not an ending point. That's just a starting point. And so with that being said, I think students or graduates of engineering or engineering technology programs should become lifelong learners. And and lastly, I think they need to have an appreciation, for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Because many of the companies that they will work for may have an international connection or connection across the The United States. And therefore, they have to be able to understand the cultures and have an appreciation for the diverse perspectives and innovation that they might encounter. I I could not agree more the global nature of the problems that they're facing, the diversity of the workforce, of course, and and I I couldn't agree more around, that growth mindset that you are talking about. Ram, I'd love to turn it over to you to see what your perspective is, how you might agree, or what you might add to that. Yeah. Great. Thank you, Kelly, for the nice introduction there. I know that was a mouthful to read. Just for the benefit of the attendees, I have been in the engineering technology education environment for the past thirty five years, going through different ranks as a teacher, scholar, department chair, and all those ranks to be the dean of the college as well. One of the things that's very important for, challenges is for the engineering profession is the shortage of high school students who are really choosing to become engineers in the first place. And also talk about the infamous demographic shift and the cliff that we are all talking about and where there is not enough high school students that are gonna be graduating in a couple of years from now. So getting more students interested into the pathways is gonna be extremely important. In order for that to happen, there are several challenges. There is a small number of eminent minority students, first of all, entering the engineering profession because, they are either advised against it or there is not good advisers at the high school level who really understand, what their profession is all about and all the outcomes and where people fit in. And because of that lack of understanding, there is no coherent push to bring more students in. Even if they wanna do that, you see a lot of inequities when it comes to the baseline high school preparation among the different demographics. The high school preparation itself is something, that we need to really pay attention to because not everybody walks away with the exact kind of knowledge and training and education. So it becomes more and more challenging. And also the third thing that we refuse to understand is the, different line learning styles that students have. So not everybody learns by sitting in a classroom, looking at the derivation. Not everybody learns by doing things. So we need a really good mix of all of these in order for people to be successful, in the engineering, education environment and become successful engineering professionals. And also the, there is not still a good understanding of the different pathways for to become an engineer. It's getting much better. We are 50 years old at our IT, in with the engineering technology program, but more a lot of companies that come to our IT understand the difference and they know that there are two pathways, but not everybody is educated. There are also, regulations and things like that that unnecessarily prevent, the engineering technology pathway students to succeed as well in government and other, jobs, federal government jobs and all that. And implementing a one size fits all solution towards engineering education is not gonna be applicable, so we need to accommodate the learner and the environment from which they are coming and then be able to, provide the education that's necessary. Thank you for that, Ram. I think I I'm even more excited to hear about all the things that you have to say, because you're you're hitting on so many key points about not just thinking about the entry to, engineering itself, but backing it up into high school and thinking about or even earlier and thinking about how are we thinking about it, how are we preparing, what is the access level, who's coming into our programs. So many great points. To keep us on time, I'll move on to the next question. But I think it, it rolls us into thinking a little bit more specifically about engineering technology departments and what role that they play in providing a profession with candidates who are prepared to solve these complex or wicked problems that we talked about before. Ram, I'm gonna start with you this time to differentiate a little bit from, you know, our our question before, which dealt with engineering and now engineering technology. Right. Thank you. Into engineering technology there, I mean, the the the term itself sometimes makes people think that it's a two year program, but there are close to, 60 plus, colleges within the, within United States that offer a four year and also a master's degree, in the engineering technology field. So these four year many of those, four year are ABET, Etech accredited programs, which have the same kind of rigor and the standards that need to be maintained, in any traditional engineering program as well in accredited program. One of the beauties beauty of the engineering technology programs is that we allow our students to learn by doing. So that's the approach that we adopt for our engineering education. We wanna make sure that they learn by doing things, not just looking at derivations, but understanding the math and its importance and applying the math to, solving the necessary problems. And we we tend to immerse the students into the technical education component of their degree program right from the first semester. So we actually try our very best to provide the math and science, more just in time as needed over the first couple of years rather than just focus on just that in the first year. We try our very best and also we work with our math departments to, have applied math and sciences to learn to support the learning styles and just in time offerings. And as I said, applied math where the application of the math principles and relating the math to actual physical problems that students will encounter. And with the AI tools today, you can really have some of these tools generate some, really wonderful practical problems, based on certain set of criteria that you provide them. And again, as I said, meeting the students where they are with their baseline high school preparation to provide that equitable access to a quality engineering education. These students walk out of our programs with the ability to go into their masters or go into industry. Many of them prefer to go into industry and then they choose either a business track, managerial track, or a technical track and go on. And we have had several of our graduates go on and get PhDs as well. Problem based learning, project based learning, experiential education, lab based education is emphasized right from the very beginning. And the last but not least, I'm gonna end with this. Even our faculty hires, we make sure that they have PhD so they can pursue research, but more applied research, but they have industry experience. So we try to bring people from industry with PhD who know where the concepts apply and then they can relate it to the students in the classroom. Thank you so much, Ram. Keith, I'm gonna pass it to you to, give your take on the engineering technology department and their role in solving these complex problems. Alright. I agree with Rama on many of those, you know, comments that he made. I think, you know, between engineering excuse me. Between engineering and engineering technology, there's been a lot of confusion about what the difference is. And so, therefore, when you present engineering technology, oftentimes, it's associated with, a two year degree and oftentimes, graduates of engineering technology program are referred to as as as as technicians or technologists, and neither are correct. They are graduates of engineering technology programs. And so to try to put things a little bit more perspective so that we can see where engineering is in comparison to engineering technology. As Ram said that, you know, engineering technology is a hands on approach. And so I'm a put some percentages there, approximate percentages, so it can kinda put things in a little bit more context. When we look at, graduates of engineering technology programs on specifically engineering technology departments, theory versus practice is about fifty fifty. 50 hands on, 50% theory. And so when you look at a two year degree, which these are where the technicians and the technologists graduate from, these folks are pretty much 80% hands on, 20% theory. So where is engineering in all of this? Engineering is is the total opposite of the reverse of an engineering technologist. Engineering is approximately, 80% theory, 20% hands on. And then you move up from there, which is a scientist. And scientist is pretty much 100%, you know, theory, research, those kind of things. And you can even throw craftspersons in there as well, which is pretty much 100%, you know, hands on. They may not necessarily under understand the theory. But it gives us a context for trying to understand it. So the original question has to do with, you know, engineering technology departments. Well, they focus on the implementation of real life applications of engineering solutions and design. So that's really what, engineering technology departments do. Students are taught to apply their knowledge of math, science, engineering, and technology in technicals, settings. They oftentimes work in teams to implement and identify solutions. So graduates of these programs may work in a number of settings or industries. Graduates are also needed by both large and small enterprises, and and that includes health care. That includes local and state government. That includes a variety of industries. So so engineering technology, though it is broad in terms of disciplines, is about 50% hands on, 50% theoretical. Super. I now there was a question in the chat. I'm gonna take this chance to ask you, because they asked the question, how does industrial technology differ from engineering technology? Is industrial technology in essentially a subset of engineering technology, or they just wanted you to to clarify quickly? Well, engineering technology really is, industrial, technology. When I graduated from North Carolina A and T, back in the nineteen eighties, the term had not been introduced to the to the university at that point. So it was industrial technology. And so now they they they skipped over that. They didn't name it engineering technology. They they named it applied engineering. So that's that's that's it's really essentially the same thing. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you for taking a second to clarify just before we jumped in here. Now we are gonna move right now to the presentations. I'm gonna skip us ahead a little bit so that we stay on time. So I I'm gonna turn it to you, Keith, since you've already got the screen here, to talk about your experiences at the department of engineering at East Tennessee State University. So take it away. I've been at East Tennessee State University for over thirty years. I've been a department chair almost as long. And so it's unusual to be in a role that way, but I've had a front row seat to being able to establish a lot of the the programs that we have in engineering technology as well as some of the engineering programs. Now throughout my my tenure at East Tennessee State University, we we have started a lot of of initiatives that we we've been very successful at, recruiting and retaining underrepresented population, women, and other students as well, low income, Pell eligible, etcetera. So we have a a summer camp, that we started several years ago. It's a three week, experiential program that covers you know, we have computing, digital media, engineering, engineering technology, and many other related areas such as robotics, three d three d printing, stereo lithography. We use drones, etcetera. The program is designed specifically for high school students. I work with the local boys and girls club and other community organizations around our region to get these students here. I've even, had a camp one summer that I call STEMposium, where the goal was to bring 100 underrepresented young ladies into the campus, and we were able to be very successful with that. The program really focuses on really promoting some of the, the technology that we have, some of the specific, you know, four year programs that we have in order to try to to recruit. We've had quite quite a bit of success with the from these students. These students, when they come to the institution, they are not coming into an environment where, they are unfamiliar with the technology. They're unfamiliar with the program. They're coming in knowing what they're getting into. And so oftentimes, what we find is that not do we don't lose the students in large numbers per se, but we will lose a student from one concentration to another. For an example, we may have a student who starts out in biomedical engineering technology who may end up being in in, the electrical engineering technology program or construction or industrial or some of the other programs that we have such as surveying and, industrial. Each week, the students are given opportunity to explore and cover careers. So we give them an opportunity to learn about, you know, first of all, how do you get in college? We also set up where students will receive two credits, college credits for participating in in this summer camp so that if they choose to come back to East Tennessee State University, we will apply that as a technical elective towards their, their, their curriculum. So that will will help them, quite a bit. The another thing that we did few years ago had some of our underrepresented students, you know, you know, requiring of asking about, you know, kind of a a place that they can belong. And so one of the things that I started was a Nesby chapter, which is National Society for Black Engineers at, Eastern Tennessee State University. And right now, I must say it's probably one of the largest, you know, student organizations that we have from an academic perspective. We have over 70 members right now. And and recently as recent as, a month ago, they received a national award in Atlanta at the national conference based on a lot of the work that they're doing. The students in this program, not only do they find a place where they belong, but they also connect with the community as well. They spend quite a few quite a bit of time working with the Boys and Girls Club. They serve as mentors. They serve as assistance to those high schools that have robotic competitions and things like that. So we get them really engaged in in in in the service component. In addition, we have graduate students in the program as well or the organization. Graduate students will mentor to seniors. Seniors will mentor juniors, juniors mentor sophomores on down to freshmen. So we're trying to make sure we have this community that we we established so that, they have the support that they need. And so we we have a high graduation rate among those students who participate in that. Another thing that we we utilize at our institution is our, campus center for teaching excellence as well as having an annual, equity and inclusion conference. With our campus center for teaching excellence, you know, they they focus on helping faculty to to develop a more inclusive, course. They work with them with the syllabus. They help them with strategies regarding best practices for, retention strategies in the classroom. They focus on feedback or getting feedback from students, focus on getting appropriate, assessments taken care of, focus on high impact practices, active and and collaborative learning as well as course design. And so if you needed someone to come to your class and videotape you, they will videotape and sit down with you and go over, you know, your your teaching and and provide you helpful feedback that will allow you to maybe, address, some challenges that you have. Ron indicated before that, you know, he works with, you know, works with high school students or wanting to work with high school students in order to help close some of the equity gaps. And so when we think about some of the things that we have here, some of the strategies that we have at East Tennessee State University is a part of our whole, what we call a moonshot initiative that will help us to close some of the equity gaps that we have. And we use the teaching and learning center or the campus center for teaching excellence to help us be better prepared for that. Regarding an annual conference, we have a annual equity and inclusion conference that I started. This will be the six six years. So it's been six years ago when I started a conference. And we have just over five between five and six hundred folks who participate in that conference. But what we do, we focus on best practices. We focus on practices that will allow us to try to increase, our ability to recruit and retain underrepresented population, women, and all population, including international students, low low income as well. And so what we're finding is that student faculty, staff are applying a lot of those strategies and best practices to our campus. I mentioned a term before, which is moonshot. It's not necessarily, a part that I included in the presentation, but it's an umbrella, if you will, of strategies that we use trying to increase retention, among all of our students at East Tennessee State University. That includes engineering students as well as computing students, includes biology students, and other science students. So it's really a university wide initiative that I started in order to try to close some of the equity gaps, that we have. Summer bridge programs. Couple years ago, I started a summer bridge program. We call it Bucks Academy. East Tennessee State University is known as being Buccaneers, and so that's why I call it Bucks Academy. But the purpose of this particular, academy is is to recruit diverse population of students. Over the years, we've seen, or experienced a lot of success, with the program. It's designed to give, entering first time college students kind of a solid foundation, before they start their first year. The program is very active. It's very engaging. And one of the significant things that that I will say is that, students who participate in this program have a much higher graduation and persistent rate than the general population at East Tennessee State University. And so we we take great pride in in this particular program. We also have another program that allows us to focus on on some engineering students as well as other science students. We call it a Nichols Academy. I know I didn't put that particular one on the screen, but Nichols Academy is one that I launched this past, December. I haven't got the the great results yet, but we have 100% of students who participated this past fall return in January. So we're starting to see much success, you know, as we as we get started, with that particular program. And so I'll stop there, and, turn it back over. Thank you so much, Keith. I don't know about all of you. I was taking notes. So we'll come back, and and sort of do a quick summary of that because there was lots of great information there. It's exciting to hear about all the things you're doing, at East Tennessee. I'm gonna pass it over to Ram now who's going to talk to us, about what they're doing at our IT and the pathways and approaches that they've used to try and widen access and how they're leveraging their education, engineering technology education program. So, Ram, over to you. Thank you, Kelly. There is a question there. I think my by starting to answer that question, I think I'll provide a good lead into where where I'm gonna go. Engineering technology programs generally have a higher percentage of what we call ALANA first gen and women students. ALANA is African American, Latin American, and Native American students, first generation students. And depending on the programs that you offer, you can attract women students as well. The question also says, okay, why is that? If so, why is that or how is it happening? But the reason is many of the this pathway, accommodates students that come from high school environments that probably don't have the same level of opportunities that are provided to a student from a suburban environment. And that tends to typically be rural, urban, and other districts that really supply the, candidates. These are all really great candidates given the right kind of support and the, start, and the hands on education. They really thrive in that and then, they they are successful. So most of the things that, Keith talked about, we do it in one form or the other. We have a set of coordinators that truly, engage with the students and counselors right from the very beginning. So we bring them on campus. We bring them for the summer. We bring them after they are admitted, and they give we give them that experience, so that they will lock in and they'll see they'll pay their deposit and they're able to pursue, that education. So a lot of the things that Keith talked about, I won't repeat, but those are the ones that brings it inside. So at RIT, the college that I have the opportunity to lead, the College of Engineering Technology, has the highest percentage of underrepresented minority first generation, and women students across 10 disciplines, on campus, and we have been successful in maintaining that. Now after bringing students into the college, we provide a lot of support mechanisms that I'm gonna talk about, here in the next couple of slides that really enable them to succeed. So I'm broadly gonna categorize those as academic advancement. What are some things that we do for academic advancement? Career exploration, how do we show them what careers are out there and how to experience those and explore those. And a lot of internal and external outreach to these students because it's not enough if we bring them in. We need to provide a lot of support systems as well so they are successful and, and advocacy. So I'm gonna break it up into those four main areas. And each of those, I just want to highlight a few things. So the academic advancement primarily focuses on exploring educational opportunities, co op and study abroad experiences. One of the things that I did over the past couple of years as a dean is to actually work with our alumni to develop, a funding scheme, funding, source that on an annual basis provides students the opportunity to experience study abroad. Many of these students, never had the opportunity or were very shy or didn't have the financial wherewithal to participate in it. So we were able to provide that through that scholarship. So and also, we bring in students who have already successfully completed their co op assignments to come and present an evening. And we give them food and the students come to that. They participate. They basically walk around and look at the posters and talk to the students that have gone through. So this really helps them understand how to interview, what what do the interviewers look for, and how have their peers been successful. Faculty research. Some of these students are really good in research as well. We have been very successful in engaging them. So we have similar to the co op, for the, students. We have faculty who showcase their research and depending on the areas of interest, the students can, participate in it. I I put here navigating the College of Engineering Technology. We have nine undergraduate programs and six graduate programs. One of the things that our IT does is we ask them to choose a program. But sometimes, they choose it, but then they are not sure if that's what they wanna continue. So in the first year, we give them that opportunity to navigate and experience and see if that's the right fit, talk to their peers, peer mentors. So that provides them the ability to identify the right fit within the programs that they, that they want. Going to the next one, career exploration. Preparing for professional success. One of the things that we have is career fair preparation. So these students are really shy about going and attending a career fair where there are 250 some more companies that are participating that are actually looking at resumes. So we help them write the resumes. We help them, we teach them a little bit about, if needed, how to dress up for an interview. We also have what is called soft skills workshop. We do every every Tuesday, five to seven, the industry panel comes in, the students participate, we talk about topics, soft skill topics, and then they over dinner, they interact with the panel. And that way, they understand what the interview is all about, what they look for. Networking with industry professionals. That's, that's in addition to our own alumni come for different events and participate. One of the things, for example, is engineers week. We bring one set of alumni from different industries to support the undergraduate program each day so that they can meet. We also take them on tours of industry and other presentations from industry professionals so that they know what they're learning in class and what they're doing in the lab is very much relevant to what they're gonna be doing when they go out. So we we we try to emphasize that as well. Building a strong community. That's very, very important for this population because if you really look at it, they're probably 25% of the population that they're all together. But then when they split up to different classes, that's even further reduced. And when they go to their other courses, they probably don't see anybody like them in the classroom. So we really need the community and being able to keep them together and bring them together for events, so that they know there are other people, who are also very similar, who are going through the same set of difficulties. Right? And one of the things that we have is we have what is called an affinity dinner. So one of the nights what we do is all the leadership is in that room, we don't talk. We provide the dinner and we let them talk and tell us what what is their experience, what are they doing, and what are some changes that they want us to make to make their life better. So things like that. So and the last one but not least is the advocacy, empowering women and underrepresented groups in this field through scholarships and awards. We have several scholarships where we give anywhere from $300 for emergency use all the way to paying off the last course, tuition for the last course. So we have our alumni donate into all of these kinds of things to so that we can do as deans, we can do some of those things for these students. Workshops on confidence and leaderships. So for example, women women alumni, we come bring them together. We celebrated our twentieth year of women in technology, and we brought local VPs who are women who graduated from our program and they came and they presented. So they have a good group to connect with. And a lot of community discussions as well, not only within the college, women in technology, but also the MCAS and other entities within the campus that really is looking to support, these students. Okay? I think that ends my, section. It is. I have to say, Ram, and Keith, lots of kudos in the in the chat as well. I think folks are very impressed about all the efforts that you're doing and and hopefully, you're you're inspiring others. I'd love to you know, you both presented us with a significant amount of information and and really inspirational ideas. Perhaps you could each give us your top three takeaways. Keith, I'll go back to you to start us off here. Share your top three takeaways and then, Ram, I'll pass it to you before we get to the q and a. Sure. I think, you know, one of my top takeaways is that I think we we realize what we have to do if we're going to, you know, try to, widen the pathways for students to to enter and graduate from engineering technology. We're gonna have to, come to the realization that there may be some differences in teaching and learning styles that we're gonna have to align. I think we have to come to terms with the fact that we may not have created an an inclusive environment where students may feel welcome there. And and we may kinda have to come to the realization that, not everyone that we have in our classrooms have gone through summer enrich enrichment camps, and they're prepared and know exactly what they're actually getting into. So we may have to do come to the realization that we have to do a little bit of homework and put things in place that will allow students to catch up. I mean, that's the reality. As we look at the the future of of demographics in this country, I mean, we we know that the country is is becoming a little bit more diverse, now than it was in the past. And and you can go back to as far as 1911 I mean, not 1911, but 2011 and see even back then based on the census data, you know, children that every every children under the age of one, they represent over 50% of the population, if you will. And so we we got a not the general population, but, they they were underrepresented, population. So so there are a lot of things that we have to prepare ourselves for. Right? You know, I always tell people, you know, it's always better to prepare your roof when it's sunny, right, than to wait until it's raining. So I think we have some time right now to be able to put structures in place that will support our students as they as they venture and began to make decisions about what they wanna major in. We also know that based on some of the data that exists I know the McKinsey study back in 2007 indicated that, you know, companies including engineering enterprises, if you will, were much more successful financially if they had a lot of women in leadership roles. So when you start talking about engineering engineering technology, you know, there's room for everybody. Theoretically, the the need is there. Ram talked about, this need and this this this this cliff that we've been thinking about. Well, right now, we have to figure a way how to open a pipeline because we're all competing for the same students. And if that be the case, then we need to make sure that we put things in place that will support our students so that they can not only persist, but they can graduate and help populate, this country with engineers. Because right now, even if all of us meet our goals of graduating our students, we're still not gonna be able to meet the future needs of those folks that's gonna be needed to fill these technical positions when baby boomers like myself and others decide that we're gonna pull our shoots and retire. Great great points around sort of preparing for the future. So that's that's why we need more conversations like these. Thanks, Keith. Ram, I'd love to turn it to you, for your takeaways, please. That that's it. That's gonna be a tough fact to follow with three takeaways, but I I did everything, that Keith said. In addition, I think from my point of view, the three the the the three key takeaways for me is on the input side, I look at it as a process. I look at it as a system. On the input side, we need to educate a lot more people about the pathways with which somebody can become an engineer, both from the high school, the industry, and every every aspect. The process is where we educate, how we support them, provide the learning environment that is needed for these differentiated learners while still, providing them a good solid foundation in education. And keep making sure that, there's not too much attrition. Right? Because if we don't take care of that, it's not in like Keith said, even if we graduate 100% from every university, it's still not gonna be enough. So if there are people are treating throughout the process, then that's not good. So that's the second thing in the process. The output side is in some areas, there is still this differentiation between engineering and engineering technology graduates. All of that needs to go away so that they can feel proud of the licensure, possibilities and everything and grow equally. And that'll automatically help bring more students into the pathways as well. So I'll conclude with that. Super. Those were both both, really beautiful summaries, I think, of of what we talked about today and and nice take home points for everybody to land on. We have some time for q and a, so I'm going to move to, the questions that have been sent in. I will share a couple of quick, updates though because folks were asking if they will get a copy of this recording. So, yes, absolutely, you will get a copy of this recording. I know it was a lot of good information that we we just received, and we wanna take time to digest it. And then we may not get through all of the questions today because, again, there there were a lot of questions popped in to the chat and then also as folks registered to, for this webinar. So, our speakers have kindly agreed to do their best to answer any questions that, we don't get to today. But I'm going to start, both of you off with a question. And, Ram, I'll go to you first this time, for a question around many grants are not allowing, all girl camps in an effort to be fair and equitable. Other other, you know, traditional ways or or pathways, are being challenged as well given the political state of DEI in the country. Is there a particular way to be able to target recruitment for DEI in a time that DEI is being challenged? Yeah. That's a really good question. It's a challenging question as well. But one of the things that, most of the cautionary things that we have been asked to do are more from a legal perspective. So nobody says that this is exclusively for one group or the other. Although we can so we generally tend to be very open ended and keep it generic. But still there are components of that grant or that activity or something that could be specific to a population while we are not excluding others as well from that. So, I'm able to give you a very generic answer, but that's how we have been adapting to avoid the legal troubles of saying in the brochure that this is exclusively for women or you know what I mean? So that's how we have handled it and we have been successful and our IT legal team has been happy with the way we have approached it. We have not had any issues. So we continue to push for those things. Super. Keith, anything you'd like to add to that? Yeah. It it's a challenge. I know I wear one hat where I serve as VP for equity and inclusion. It makes it real challenging to do that. And so what I've done is, you know, typically, if we're trying to get more women, you know, not that I'm exclusively just recruiting women, I just go to places where there are more women. I mean, for an example, if I wanted to recruit, you know, more underrepresented population, let's just say, Hispanics, African American, etcetera, being in Tennessee, I'll if I say I'm going to Bristol, Tennessee and recruit, obviously, I'm not gonna yield many because there's not many there. But if I go to Memphis and recruit, I'm recruiting all students, but there is a much larger diverse population there. So strategically, you have to really figure out how to do this. I think when it comes down to DEI, DEI is really trigger words has really become trigger words. But I think people have an appreciation for the work that needs to be done. Because I can build you a strong case supporting the fact that if we don't if we don't, you know, opening open the pathway so that folks can come in, we're not gonna be able to meet our country's goals in terms of filling and back filling these positions in engineering or engineering technology or technicians or, technologists, if you will. It's just gonna be impossible to do that. So we gotta figure out strategically how can we get more folks in the pipeline. Not that we exclude any population. We want all folks to be here. But, theoretically, we're we're pushing against some of those some of the national challenges right now, which is young men are choosing not to go to college now. And so that compounds the problem that we have. And so we gotta figure out who are gonna be these engineers. If the guys are not going to college, who else are you gonna get? Right? So we gotta figure out how to be creative. I think we're smart, you know, at these universities. Right? We we're a clearing house of knowledge and information. We just gotta figure out how to do it. I love that. I love that. And and you're both spoken about the demand cliff, the demographic cliff, as well as these DEI challenges all coming together. And I think you're right. Solving them as a community, is is the solution. Moving us a little further on from recruitment, thinking about, you know, we've seen lots of programs for high school students to encourage pathways towards engineering technology. What can be done at the time of admissions to ensure nontraditional students have the opportunity to be considered, whether that's for engineering technology or engineering? Keith, I'm gonna go to you first this time, and then we'll just keep alternating. So on the front end, there are a lot of things that we can do. First of all, we need to figure out how we can have mentors already in place when these students come. Right? That's gonna be very important. Another thing that's very important is making sure that we have some type of intervention prior to the students ever getting to the campus. Right? So whether it's summer programs, whether, you know, you have advisers communicating with folks at the at the high schools, talking about university advisers going to the high schools. Right? I spent a lot of my time going to high schools. I spent a lot of my time going to these community centers, boys and girls clubs. You know, I participate in a lot of the competitions that we have. I take competitions to boys and girls club. You know, it's common for me to go with a drone or a robot or something and go and be able to expose these kids. And a lot of these kids who are underrepresented, they see me as a unicorn because for many of them, they haven't seen anyone like me who is a professor who who who who's who's African American male. And so what I try to do is, you know, present to them, if I can do it, they too can do it. And I try to make sure that that message is is loud and clear. And because there are a lot of shared experiences, you know, that I can that I can communicate with them that where there are a lot of similarities there. And and if I was able to get over my obstacles, they too can do the same thing. But I think, you know, we have to we have to make the investment on the front end, which oftentimes we do, but the back end is a part where we have a bigger problem. That is once we get you here, how do we keep you? And that's where we have to be creative and make sure that we put the appropriate programming, the appropriate mentoring, the appropriate advising, the appropriate organizations and support systems in place so that we can keep these students, whether it's the living learning community, whether it's the more like cultural center, whether it's the NSBE groups, or or these things like that. We have to make sure that they are in place and very effective at doing what they do. Absolutely. Ram, I'd love to turn it to you now for your perspective. I I I I think I think, Keith has covered it really well, in terms of the on the input side and all the support mechanisms that are needed right from the very beginning when they come in. It's basically being able to show the difference between engineering and engineering technology, a four year engineering and a four year engineering technology very clearly to the students and the parents and the counselors. So they know the background of the students and they will be able to guide them based on that. So ever since we started doing it, we have had more first choice students coming directly into the College of Engineering Technology wanting to pursue that pathway rather than going into or applying into engineering and then being pushed into ET or any of that kind of stuff. So now we have lot more first time first choice program students coming in. And we have a we have a table that's on our, website, so you're more than welcome to go and take a look on our Oh, perfect. Perfect. We can, we can maybe link that in the follow-up email, for all the registrants tomorrow so that they could have a look at that. That would be great. Maybe, Ram, I'll ask you there's a bit of a follow-up question here, so maybe you can answer this. It says the ABET Etech calculus requirements affects our student retention. In contrast, the faculty did not find that higher level of calculus is required in their ETC programs. Are there thoughts or approaches to mitigate this? I was telling you this was a big conversation at the dean's conference too. So Well, yes. That's why what one of the it is definitely something that we keep talking about all the time anyway. But one of the things that we are embarking on is to basically link the concepts that they are learning in those calculus courses and relating it to, the different fields, whether it's a civil engineering technology or mechatronics engineering technology or electrical. We are actually developing the problem sets, and we're gonna use those as part of the, an applied mathematics course that's gonna become a required course for all of our freshmen that starts to relate these concepts to real problems and how to solve it and using those math principles or science principles. So once they do that, then they have a clear understanding of that, then they can basically go back and be successful in the math courses. At least that's one pathway, that one, way that we have, looked at addressing that, shortfalls. Thank you. I'm going to turn it to Keith for this this next question too, and then back to Ram as well to get your perspective on it. Again, this wasn't something else that I I heard about, in the Dean's Conference as they were talking about it. So in your experience, what is the biggest source of diversity among students? Race, gender, socio demographics, cognitive learning styles, personality types, you know, what are some of the things that you're seeing? And then how can engineering educators accommodate these differences with you know, is there a need for personalization there? Yeah. All of the above. I think when you when you think about diversity, what we're what we're seeing is there's economic diversity there. There's I think Ram mentioned, you know, teaching and learning style. There's some diversity there. So So it's all over over the board. And so in a in a classroom, you you can't really, you know, establish who's gonna be in your class in terms of these diverse styles, what population of students are gonna be in there. And so I think what we have to do is remember, I just made a comment earlier that we are clearing house of knowledge, information, wisdom, and all that higher education. But yet, we have not gotten over the fact that we still use a lecture when we know it's the most ineffective way of delivering instruction. Right? We still do that. So we're gonna have to figure out that what we're doing may not necessarily work. I have a very, diverse teaching style. And not only do I have a very diverse teaching style, but I try to deliver information in so many different ways to interact with with our students. Some students, I may have a a shared lived experience. Some students, I may not necessarily have a shared lived experience, but we visited some locations that are in common. And so what you do is the more you get to know your students, the more you get to know about those diverse things that you may be able to adjust for in your delivery in the in the classroom. So I think we have to be engaging. When you when we we put together these PowerPoint slides and and we go in and say, you know, based on ABET, I've covered these objectives. I got them in and stuff. If we if we continue to go in that way, we're gonna continue to get the same results we've been getting. We just have to go in with an understanding that our classrooms with these students are very diverse at every level. And that's why I said all of the above at every level, which means that we're gonna have to pull out all the states. Right? You're gonna have to do this with a passion, when you're when you're teaching, you know, knowing that you have different people. And just because you teach one way and you've been doing that for thirty years, it doesn't necessarily mean it's it's the risk best way. Doesn't mean it's very effective. It's just that's what you do. So we're gonna have to figure out how we can change up a little bit with AI being a part of this and students. You know, they are a lot different than they were ten years and fifteen years ago. We're just about to figure out how we can make some of the adjustments so we can better meet the needs of our students regardless of their race, ethnicity, where they're coming from, their financial, distributions, etcetera. We're just gonna have to make the adjustment. Absolutely. Thank you. And I I I really agree. And and, Ram, I think this you know, you spoke to sort of taking the math and making it applied, which I really like. I think, you know, there's there's something in that too for how we create sort of a place for everybody who might not be at the same level when they first come in, and may make some of these complex things more meaningful. Do you have, you know, thoughts, Ram, on on sort of how you address the the different, diversity of your program and and your approach to it too? Yeah. The the key is what Keith said. Pedagogical strategies have been key to, how we provide the opportunity for these students to have access to what was done in the classroom for a longer period of time if needed, over the weekend if needed or right before they do their homework. And coming to the class, with that preparation ahead of time so that there could be some good meaningful conversations. And providing the support mechanism, Support is gonna be extremely essential for this diverse population. They need to identify with people that had similar struggles before and are successful now, have gone through a co op and have secured a full time job or are alumni who are very successful. So connecting them with all of these kinds of resources as they go through the program, we have found that that has been very helpful as well. And also allowing them to explore like the NSP conference or the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, SHPE conference, sending them to those and so that they can experience those things and look at other people like themselves. So a lot of those kinds of support mechanisms are the one I mean, even simple thing is I don't have a laptop in my dorm room because I cannot afford it. Great. We are taking away laptops from faculty every couple of years. Those are still really good laptops. We have a loaner program we give to students. We keep labs open 20 four seven so that they can come in anytime. And if we are able to load the software in locations where they are, we do that too. So different ways to support their success. That's that's amazing. I feel like the three of us could keep chatting for a while. There's a ton of questions here. So we'll get to them as many of they them as they can. I wanna thank our speakers for their time and and really importantly, your insight sharing your experiences, what's worked, what where you've struggled, and and what we can maybe do because I think you've brought both your your own knowledge, but sort of the institutional perspective as well. So thank you to all of you. I wanna thank you so much for joining us today. We will share a copy of this and look forward to continuing the conversation. So thank you all on behalf of us here at Acuity as well as ASCE for joining us today. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.