The project is supporting The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to organize and run a Principal Investigator (PI) meeting for the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Instruction (CCLI) in the fall of 2010. The objective of the conference is to provide an opportunity for CCLI PIs to share methods and strategies for preparing a diverse undergraduate student population to enter the scientific workforce and to participate as citizens in a technological society. The overall outcome of this conference is for CCLI PIs to identify collaborators, strategies, and actions that they and others can use to strengthen the design, development, and implementation of promising project approaches to transform undergraduate STEM education. The conference includes plenary lectures, poster sessions, interactive workshop discussions on topics of interest to those leading CCLI projects, and an opportunity to network with other faculty and educational leaders engaged in improving undergraduate STEM education. The conference will include 550 CCLI PIs and 50 other participants, including publishers and staff of professional societies, foundations, and business. All CCLI PIs selected to participate in the conference must present a small group session or a poster. Other non-NSF participants are expected to disseminate information about strategies and concepts. To ensure diversity among the topics and participants, selection is taking into account discipline, type of project, type of institution, race/ethnicity, gender, disability, and geographic location. The on-site project evaluation is capturing actions that participants intend to take immediately after the conference. An online follow-up survey is capturing actions that participants are taking no later than three months after the conference. Products to be developed include a conference program with printed abstracts and a glossy post-conference publication with case studies of exemplary CCLI projects.
