Daily Pioneer News

PLATTEVILLE - The University of Wisconsin-Platteville's College of Engineering, Mathematics and Science hosted an interactive workshop entitled "Strengthening the Pipeline of Engineering Recruits" on Friday, Oct. 26. High school and middle school teachers and guidance counselors from the surrounding area attended the workshop in order to learn how to promote engineering as a professional career opportunity to their students and how to prepare these students for higher education.

Abulkhair and Fahmida Masoom coordinated this event, which was funded by a UWP Foundation Opportunity Grant and the College of EMS. Abulkhair and Fahmida wrote a grant in the hopes that they would be able to host an event that would help teachers to bridge the gap between middle and high school and college, and to encourage local students to choose engineering as their career. Abulkhair also expressed his hope that the program would promote UWP to local students, who often see the quality of the university's engineering programs yet do not always attend UWP.

The workshop opened with a short welcome from some of the UWP faculty and staff. Richard Shultz, dean of the College of EMS, spoke about focusing on attracting the type of student who may not believe that he or she has what it takes to be an engineer.

"A successful person in engineering is not necessarily the student who has an innate ability for science and math, but the one who has the desire to be an engineer. If they want it, they can do it."

Shultz also spoke of the importance of continuing Wisconsin as a state that produces a large amount of engineers. Companies that hire engineers come to the states that produce these engineers, thus making it even more crucial for Wisconsin to keep educating engineers, and to recruit even more.

Carol Sue Butts, UWP provost, expressed her interest in recruiting more women in particular. According to Butts, girls in third and fourth grade are interested and excited about math and science, and actually get better grades in those subjects than boys their age. Butts hoped the program would help teachers find ways to keep girls interested in engineering, math and science.

Abulkhair Masoom then introduced Don Woolston, the assistant dean for the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Masoom explained that they chose Woolston as the main speaker because he has an outsider's perspective, as he is not an engineer by profession. The second half of the workshop featured three speakers: Dean Isaacson, district administrator for the Platteville School District; Tammy Salmon-Stephens, senior director of Women in Engineering and engineering advising at UWP; and Joanne Wilson, executive director of First Year Experience.

Woolston focused in particular about the challenges and setbacks that educators face today. Because of the immense increase in technology in recent years, students are more distracted by things like Facebook, e-mail and cell phones. He also noted that students seem to know more yet understand less. Fahmida Masoom elaborated on this, saying that young adults have a tendency to want an answer immediately, without actually thinking about the problem or question. The rising occurrence of depression in teenagers is another difficulty that educators must face.

But it's not all bad news. In addition to producing a large number of engineers, Wisconsin also produces competent teachers and students that continue to score the highest in the country on the ACT.

Beth Abing, a science teacher at Cassville High School, was one of the local educators that attended the workshop.

"The workshop was really enlightening. It's obvious we're dealing with a different type of student these days. The projects I use don't work like they did 10 years ago," Abing said.

Abing plans to approach this problem by finding new activities for her students to engage in, and by letting her students help choose these activities.

Abulkhair hoped that the educators that attended the workshop would return to their respective institutions and share what they learned with other faculty members. The Masooms requested that the participants help discover why there is a disconnection between K-12 and engineering programs, and how to get their students excited about engineering.

Anyone interested in more information about the workshop should contact Abulkhair Masoom at (608) 342-1732 or masoom@uwplatt.edu.

Contact: Abulkhair Masoom, professor, UWP general engineering, (608) 342-1732,masoom@uwplatt.edu Written by: Megan Mowry, UWP Public Relations, (608) 342-1194, mowryme@uwplatt.edu