This proposal from Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) is requesting funds for a two day workshop for faculty and administrative leaders from US Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) who are committed to curricular reforms. The goal of this workshop is to enable MSI educators to bring computational and data-enabled science and engineering topics into undergraduate and graduate education and exchange best pedagogical practices.
Although some strides have been made in integrating the computational science competencies required in this field into the university curriculum, the pace of change has been slow resulting in a critical shortage of sufficiently qualified students at both the baccalaureate and graduate levels. The problems of integrating computational science into the curriculum are particularly acute on the campuses of minority serving institutions (MSIs). Heavy teaching loads and the lack of local resources combined with the limited number of faculty with computational science expertise significantly slows efforts to modify the curriculum. Some institutions may lack the critical mass of faculty on their campuses to support this particular curricular reform effort. This workshop will provide an opportunity for the participating institutions to tackle curriculum reform issues and planning in a focused uninterrupted environment with expert facilitation. The workshop is designed to provide the participants with the tools and information necessary to articulate a strong business case for making curriculum changes; identify the resources and services that can be leveraged; create draft plans that can be submitted to their faculty council, provost and other bodies and committees that approve curriculum; and explore implementation collaborations.
Computational science has become the third path to discovery in science and engineering along with theory and experimentation. It is central to research efforts in the biological and physical sciences, engineering, and medicine. Computational modeling is also crucial to the competitiveness of U.S. business and industry as a way of reducing product design, testing, production, and marketing costs in the face of international market competition. More recently, massive datasets have added to these demands on the workforce for people who understand the problems of storage, curation, and analysis of data not only from science and engineering endeavors but increasingly in the social sciences. Although some strides have been made, progress on the integration of computational science into the curriculum is particularly acute on the campuses of minority serving institutions (MSIs). Heavy teaching loads and the lack of local resources combined with the limited number of faculty with computational science expertise significantly slows their efforts to implement curriculum changes. The potential exists to take advantage of national efforts to integrate computational science into the curriculum and to apply distance learning technologies to form consortia with sufficient critical mass to support viable programs. The Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) convened a workshop for MSIs committed to computational science curricular reforms that was co-facilitated by Linda Akli (SURA Assistant Director of Training Education and Outreach) and Steve Gordon (Senior Education Specialist at the Ohio Supercomputer Center). Ten institutions, sending at least two representatives, participated in the workshop including: Clark Atlanta University, Florida A&M University, Morehouse College, Navajo Technical University, New Mexico State University, North Carolina A&T State University, Philander Smith University, Southern University and A & M College, Spellman College, and the University of Texas at El Paso. Each institution submitted a letter of commitment from a Senior Administrator and a draft plan prior to the workshop for feedback. The workshop opened with a discussion of program opportunities and challenges, an Industry Panel on the need for computational scientists, and presentations on several successful curriculum reform efforts at institutions serving similar student populations. Working sessions were held in which the participants were grouped by their stated institutional goals. The participants left the workshop with updated plans. Eight of the institutions are planning on implementing an undergraduate minor or certificate; one is developing an undergraduate degree program; and one is developing a PhD program. To address the difficulties of implementing larger scale programs, several participants identified implementation steps within departments to incrementally building towards minors, certificates or degree programs and several potential collaborations emerged. A post workshop survey was administered. The survey data and draft plans provide insight into the benefit of the workshop and how the participating institutions are planning on proceeding. The primary outcomes of the workshop are: Participants made significant progress on drafting plans and left the workshop eager to report back to their administration, organize and enlist their colleagues. Based on limited resources to start new curricula, a majority of the participants are starting with incremental steps such as offering a model course or implementing computational science in a single discipline. There was a definite interest to explore consortial approaches in more depth including how such an approach could be funded. Participants are interested in follow up assistance in the form of external review and consulting. Across institutions the training needs varied depending on who attended. The training identified in the survey was aligned with the discipline that would be the first on campus to implement.
