The ?Integration of Education and Mentoring Programs at Louisiana State University? is an institutional effort designed to integrate a large number of on-going programs at LSU, especially those led by the newly established Louisiana State University (LSU) Office of Strategic Initiatives and LSU?s Gordon A. Cain Center for Scientific, Technological, Engineering and Mathematical Literacy. The PI/Co-PIs have altogether 50 on-going education/mentoring/research grants; the majority of those are funded by NSF. These projects are currently supporting over 50 Ph.D. students, 300 undergraduate students, hundreds of high school teachers, and thousands of K-12 students. Therefore, an integration of those programs under the umbrella of NSF/Innovation through Institutional Integration (I3) is appropriate. While all other projects on campus will be invited to participate, we will ensure that, under the overall leadership of OSI, the integration and coordination of a critical pool of core projects will be made through their PI/Co-PIs.
Integration of the various projects will be a challenging bureaucratic, cultural and programmatic enterprise. It will be necessary to cross department and college boundaries, address different academic cultures and norms, and ensure the integrity of the programs, especially with regard to adding to and not diluting their impact. To accomplish this, the integration efforts will be coordinated by OSI and led by the PIs/Co-PIs of the various projects. The I3 project will focus on the following: (1) Consolidation of Summer Workshops and Camps for Students, Teachers and Faculty Members; (2) Leadership Training in Academics through a Student-Governing Organization; (3) High School Math Tutoring Program by College Students; (4) Mentoring High School Louisiana Science and Engineering Fair Projects by College Students; and (5) Integration of Research into Education in Materials Engineering and Science.
