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First-Year Students Explore Artificial Intelligence

jcain — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 12:00:00 +0000

The steady drumbeat of news about advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) technology and its potential to unlock solutions and reshape the nature of work has made it clear that society is facing rapid transformation.

To help students prepare for the possibilities and challenges of this moment and the future, WPI has begun examining AI through its Great Problems Seminar, exposing first-year students to AI tools to explore how they work, to think critically about those tools鈥?potential benefits and risks to individuals and communities, and to consider ethical questions involving the emerging technology.

WPI鈥檚 Great Problems Seminar offers 11 courses, two-terms in length, to immerse first-year students in university-level research, introduce them to WPI鈥檚 project-based learning, and explore issues of global importance. This fall, the seminar launched two new AI courses.

鈥淭hrough this new curriculum, we鈥檙e calling on students to ask, 鈥楥an we?鈥?amp;nbsp; and 鈥楽hould we?鈥?when it comes to AI,鈥?said Sarah Stanlick, director of the Great Problems Seminar and an assistant professor in the Department of Integrative and Global Studies. 鈥淲e hear a lot about the potential of AI for good and sustainability. However, there are concerns about the hidden costs of running AI, such as data usage and resource depletion. I鈥檓 excited our students are exploring these complexities.鈥?amp;nbsp;

Leveraging a Lifelong Love of Learning

mlumsden — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Jessica C. Hill began as director of the Morgan Teaching and Learning Center in July 2024. An accomplished cognitive psychology researcher and educator, she is a professor in the Department of Social Science and Policy Studies, a recipient of a National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation grant, and proof that childhood dreams can come true: Hill decided when she was 10 that she wanted to be a psychologist. She spent the last 12 years at Utah Valley University, where she served as an associate professor of psychology in the Behavioral Sciences Department, including a term as department chair, and received multiple awards and recognitions for her teaching, dedication to mentoring faculty, and commitment to diversity and equity. Hill originally hails from Miami, Fla., and is happy to be back on the East Coast. She recently sat down with us to tell the WPI community a bit more about who she is and the work she plans to do with our amazing faculty members.

What drew you to this position at WPI?

When my prior institution decided that project-based learning (PBL) was something we wanted to invest in, Kris Wobbe was the person who trained me. While interacting with that stellar human, I learned about the awesome things that PBL can do, such as helping students build relationships with classmates and instructors while concurrently developing skills that help them build an identity as a college student and be successful.

The program my prior institution developed used PBL as an intervention for first-generation and low-income students from marginalized backgrounds, to give them a boost on their way to graduation. But at WPI, the whole institution does PBL! WPI feels like this little haven of rationality where people are dedicated to student excellence. This job at the Morgan Center opened up at a moment in my career when I was ready to take the next step and do faculty development full time.

Now that you鈥檙e leading the Morgan Center, what are your three top priorities?

I, of course, am on board with President Wang鈥檚 AI initiative. Each term the Morgan Center is hosting at least one Food for Thought on AI, bringing people together for snacks and meaningful discussion. We also have a professional learning community that鈥檚 dedicated to AI, not only for faculty professional development but also to identify what teaching and learning look like with AI. I think WPI is positioned to be a leader in figuring out what that means.

The second thing I鈥檓 working on is starting a student partners group we鈥檙e calling SCOPE, which stands for Student Consultants on Optimizing Pedagogical Excellence. I鈥檓 training these students to do classroom observations and provide other meaningful feedback from a student perspective. SCOPE provides confidential reports documenting excellent teaching and sharing actionable resources that support professors鈥?teaching goals. Professors can do what they want with the reports, including choosing to put them in an annual review or tenure dossier.

My third priority is helping level up new faculty orientation and mentoring in partnership with Aaron Deskins. He is a great partner in digging deep into new faculty data to determine evolving needs centered on their success. As a teaser, next year鈥檚 new faculty orientation is going to look very different.

First-Year Students Thrive in Designated Courses

mlumsden — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Sometimes it pays to sweat the small stuff. That鈥檚 the big-picture takeaway from an initiative started last year by faculty in the Department of Humanities & Arts (HUA) in response to the Mental Health and Well-Being Task Force report.

In this case, the small stuff in question relates to who takes HUA courses鈥攁nd when. Historically, many 1000-level humanities courses have filled up with upper-level students before first-year students were even eligible to enroll. This left new students either delaying their introduction to certain foundational courses or taking classes in subjects they weren鈥檛 passionate about just to fulfill a credit requirement. Both scenarios contributed to students feeling disengaged from parts of their academic journey.

At the same time, as the task force report shows, students struggled to master non-academic skills such as practicing self-care, balancing schoolwork with downtime, and developing meaningful connections with peers. There鈥檚 no specific course for these skills and historically students developed them bit by bit as they progressed through their college experience. But opportunities for teens to learn these lessons organically stopped suddenly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

鈥淚 come back to WPI day after day because of my students, and it concerned me to know that so many weren鈥檛 developing confidence in their abilities,鈥?says Joseph Cullon, professor of teaching and associate department head in HUA as well as co-chair of the Mental Health Implementation Team鈥檚 academic subgroup. 鈥淚 recognized that students needed something additional, but developing a new course or requirement takes a long time. So in conversations with colleagues we decided to change the actual delivery of our courses.鈥?lt;/p>

Cullon recruited 15 HUA faculty members to participate in a pilot program that reserved several introductory-level HUA courses during A- and B-terms in 2022 for first-year students only. None of the actual course content was altered and most of the courses were also offered in other terms, when they were open to all students.

Faculty Learn Strategies to Improve Student Well-Being and Academic Success

mlumsden — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Student learning and real-world experiences lie at the heart of WPI鈥檚 project-based learning model. To help students get the best education possible, WPI is committed to ensuring that faculty teaching is also of the highest caliber; since 1995, the university has helped faculty鈥攁ccomplished researchers and recognized experts in their fields鈥攂ecome brilliant teachers, too.

In many ways, the work the Morgan Teaching and Learning Center has done with WPI鈥檚 faculty over the years helped the university community successfully pivot during the pandemic. Technical assistance in March 2020 from WPI鈥檚 Academic Technology Center (ATC) made it possible for faculty to immediately move their courses online. Once it was clear that the pandemic would disrupt the 2020鈥?1 academic year as well, the Morgan Center partnered with ATC to support more than 200 faculty members in redesigning their fall courses to be more effective when taught online and in a hybrid capacity.

Now, the Morgan Center is again fostering faculty growth鈥攖his time in the form of introspection.

A Learning Partnership

Chrys Demetry, director of the Morgan Center and professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, has begun sharing with WPI faculty strategies for weaving student well-being into syllabi and course design. The techniques are compiled in a short self-paced online course created by ATC鈥檚 Senior Instructional Designer Caitlin Keller, who works closely with the Morgan Center. Many of the strategies are rooted in peer-reviewed research studies as well as sociologist Pierre Bourdieu鈥檚 theory of cultural capital. The syllabus sections highlight actual language that members of WPI鈥檚 faculty use in their course materials.

Chrys Demetry

Demetry says she hopes this decentralized method helps 鈥減eople to see the ranges of approaches that our faculty use鈥攏ot to label something as the best way, but to open our minds to different approaches and create conversation around that.鈥?lt;/span>

The idea behind using an accessible, learner-centered syllabus is to let students know that learning is a partnership rather than a top-down edict. Ideally this will motivate students, but it should also help them understand that it鈥檚 okay to ask for support when they need it.

New Funding from Department of Education Allows WPI to Investigate Ways to Build Climate Resilience through International Business Opportunities

jlevy2 — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Climate change is an issue facing all parts of the world, and studying both its effects and mitigation strategies are critical topics of research at WPI. Now the Department of Education (DOE) is supporting this work through a new Title VI grant that aims to identify resilience opportunities that will help address climate change issues in New Zealand. The funding will allow WPI to partner with schools, businesses, and organizations in both Massachusetts and New Zealand to collectively work on sustainable solutions.

The two-year grant is being awarded to WPI Business School Professor Michael Elmes, who founded the WPI Project Center in New Zealand in 2010. 鈥淭his is a chance for WPI to strengthen its international business education and global relations as they pertain to the role of the private sector in climate resilience and decarbonization efforts,鈥?said Elmes.

Creating inclusive partnerships in New Zealand

Even though the country is still closed to foreign visitors due to the pandemic, WPI already has strong ties to business leaders and organizations in New Zealand, and Elmes plans to connect remotely with a wide range of partners there, including technologists, climate change scientists, and business leaders, including business leaders from the M膩ori community. The involvement of M膩ori business leaders is particularly impactful because, as Elmes says, 鈥渁s indigenous partners, they have a critical role in addressing the challenges of climate resilience and decarbonization.鈥?lt;/p>

This important role comes to the forefront in a key aspect of M膩ori culture. While many workers and business owners of European ancestry leave New Zealand to seek opportunities in other countries, Elmes says M膩ori business owners usually don鈥檛 plan to leave the country. And culturally, M膩ori think long term, not just looking ahead years or decades, but keeping future generations in mind by looking ahead centuries. Elmes says it鈥檚 an outlook that could be beneficial to the rest of the world as the climate crisis becomes ever more dire.

Elmes also notes at the moment much of the U.S. trade with New Zealand is centered around wine, but the goal of this grant is to widen the conversation and expand those trade opportunities. Another aspiration of this effort is to reframe what international business as a whole can accomplish. He says he plans to use the grant to stimulate conversation on more than just global finance and trade, and to 鈥渆mphasize the essential moral and ethical role that international business has to play, particularly as it pertains to the global climate crisis.鈥?lt;/p>

Connecting globally and locally

The global-local nature of this grant is underscored by the involvement of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, which is working with WPI in a collaborative effort to increase opportunities for businesses in Central Massachusetts. Tim Murray, President & CEO of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, says, 鈥渢his grant provides opportunities to share best business practices around issues of climate change and sustainability, around Worcester, throughout the state, and in New Zealand. What鈥檚 more, there is potential for additional trade between the two nations, and tremendous opportunity for U.S. companies to bring their technology and services to New Zealand while also gaining knowledge about addressing climate change. I look forward to the sharing of ideas and opportunities back and forth between the Worcester area and New Zealand.鈥?lt;/p>

The connections this project is forging between the global and the local highlight a key tenet of a WPI education: engaging with the world to solve problems and addressing challenges both at home and abroad. Mimi Sheller, Dean of The Global School, has agreed to sit on the Advisory Board for this project, bringing her vast experience and knowledge of global politics and partnerships, as well as the resources of The Global School, to bear.

Climate change threats to New Zealand

As an island nation, New Zealand is particularly vulnerable to climate change, with many coastal communities facing an existential threat from rising sea levels. The country also has a large agrarian economy, with farming and fishing two of its most important industries, making the loss of land by rising seas and the warming ocean temperatures especially devastating.

鈥淲hile the potential impacts of climate change on New Zealand are strong, the interest in creating adaptations and resiliencies there are equally strong鈥攑articularly in de-carbonization and alternative sources of energy,鈥?said Elmes. That interest fuels real action, both from the government and the private sector. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has committed the country to becoming carbon neutral by 2050 and generating all of its energy from renewable sources by 2035. Also, in legislation that鈥檚 the first of its kind in the world, banks, investment firms and insurance companies in New Zealand are required to report the impacts their investments have on climate change.

鈥淭he private sector can play a major role in addressing climate change, and that reality also provides an important opportunity to strengthen international business education,鈥?says Elmes. 鈥淭his grant will provide WPI students with an opportunity to investigate strategies for dealing with climate change, build climate resilience, and enhance decarbonization efforts in New Zealand through international business relationships. My hope is that this grant sparks our imagination and awareness of what鈥檚 possible.鈥?lt;/p>

Funding and contributions

The total amount of the grant is of $338,927; the DOE will provide $163,344, while in-kind contributions from primarily faculty and staff at WPI will make up the balance. These include the involvement of WPI professors Ingrid Shockey of The Global School and Joe Sarkis from The Business School, who will be developing and testing curricular materials related to the award. Other WPI support will come from Kimberly LeChasseur, Research and Evaluation Associate with the Morgan Teaching and Learning Center at WPI, and Caitlin Keller, instructional designer; website design and Zoom conferencing support will come from other staff at the Academic Technology Center.

Supporting organizations include the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Higher Education Consortium of Central Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, and the Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts.

Expert Database

Find Michael Elmes and other WPI experts on the WPI Expert Database. Faculty members and senior administrators are available to offer ideas, opinions, analysis, and commentary on issues ranging from higher education, to current events, trending topics, and breaking news.

Joining Forces with Faculty to Teach This Fall

admin — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0000

Editor鈥檚 Note: This is the second installment of a three-part series examining how WPI is reimagining its distinctive education amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Part 2: WPI faculty gain even more technical skills as online, hybrid, and in-person classes are planned for the fall. Read Part 1 here.

As WPI faculty gear up for the fall semester, they will augment their traditional classroom teaching techniques with new skills gained from enhanced training through Undergraduate Studies, Academic Technology Center, Graduate Studies, and the longstanding Morgan Teaching & Learning Center.

Chrysanthe Demetry, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Morgan Teaching & Learning Center, says that faculty members have learned a lot about flexible teaching since D-Term 2020. In particular, she notes that they have embraced the challenge of transitioning from the familiarity of face-to-face instruction to the greater amount of planning that high-quality online teaching demands. 鈥淲e are really committed to high-quality education and student success, regardless of modality,鈥?she says.

Building the Framework

That commitment, pushed by the COVID-19 pandemic and then paired with pedagogical and technical help, prepared faculty to teach flexibly in a short period of time, and for the long haul.

Reflecting on lessons learned in D-Term鈥攚hen WPI sent its community to work, learn, and teach from home in March鈥攆aculty members have since demonstrated a willingness to learn and revisit core principles of effective teaching, especially for online formats, and expanded their teaching toolkits.

Because of this, teaching and learning opportunities have a bright future in the approaching school year. 鈥淲e鈥檙e confident that we鈥檙e going to provide high quality hybrid and online learning experiences this fall, given the considerable amount of training and experience that faculty have gained over the summer,鈥?says Demetry.

Part of that experience and preparation entailed faculty members working with Caitlin Keller and her team in ATC (and IT, which did the considerable technical work of moving classes online) to determine how their courses would look online. Faculty members had to consider what topics to cover, how to adapt teaching materials to an online format, and how to design student assignments such as homework and quizzes.

Building faculty members鈥?courses like this 鈥渓et us highlight the differences between in-person and online teaching,鈥?says Keller, an instructional designer. 鈥淲e helped break down how faculty can interact with students while they鈥檙e on screen instead of in a classroom, and find the natural breaks during videoed lectures. We鈥檙e making things digestible, and keeping the rigor of in-person classes.鈥?lt;/p>

Valerie Smedile Rifkin, an instructional designer for the ATC, considers input from Graduate Studies, which is led by Jody Reis, associate director of program delivery, and factors like engagement and flexibility when she and her team look at students鈥?return on investment with online learning. 鈥淲e always look at what students need out of these classes, how to measure these classes so that they achieved their goals, and whether they aligned with learning outcomes,鈥?Smedile Rifkin says.

Showcase Highlights Innovations in Teaching

amracicot — Tue, 15 May 2018 12:00:00 +0000

Few think of teaching as a solitary career, but sometimes the opportunity to talk shop with other faculty members is in short supply. Teaching in their own classrooms, advising students from their office hours or on the fly, and researching in labs tend to keep them from having free-flowing discussions about innovative teaching methods or even the basic work they are doing in their departments.

The Teaching & Learning Showcase aims to change that. Now in its second year, the event provides an end-of-the-year gathering to find out more about WPI鈥檚 constantly evolving innovative teaching. 鈥淭his helps foster dialogue about teaching and learning and what interesting work is being done in courses, projects, and the co-curriculum,鈥?says Chrys Demetry, director of the Morgan Teaching & Learning Center. She says the number of faculty members invited to present at the showcase continues to grow and increasingly highlights WPI鈥檚 myriad teaching styles and approaches.

鈥淲e teach in our own classes, but we don鈥檛 go to other classes,鈥?says Erin Ottmar, assistant professor of social science and policy studies. Ottmar says the showcase is a good way for others to see the new approaches faculty members are taking. 鈥淟ots of people on campus are trying to do interesting things in our classrooms, but no one knows about it,鈥?she says.

Faculty members hardly work in silos, says Demetry, but they often lack concrete opportunities to talk about innovative teaching methods. Some of this year鈥檚 presenters included Faculty Learning Communities; Teaching Innovation Grant recipients from 2017: studio physics, evaluation of teaching, educational uses of virtual reality; KEEN: Entrepreneurial mindset learning across the curriculum; and the Faculty Institute for Online Teaching.

They often use internal and external grants and various types of institutes to get projects like these off the ground. 鈥淕rants are common mechanisms among universities to encourage experimentation and faculty development related to teaching,鈥?says Demetry, so they are providing the initial essential funding that helps them grow into larger initiatives.

鈥淐onversations and curiosity are important. The end of the year is a time for celebration and a good time to make visible how hard and how creatively our faculty have been working to keep improving our students鈥?learning experiences.鈥?-Chrys Demetry

The showcase also calls attention to the bootstrap initiatives like the chemistry department鈥檚 grant-free curriculum overhaul. Drew Brodeur, associate teaching professor in chemistry and biochemistry, says the department has been heads-down reworking the entire approach to teaching chemistry in classrooms and in the labs. The benefits for students and faculty is already apparent, he says.

Previously, the department followed what Brodeur calls a 鈥渃ookbook鈥?approach, but the typical experiments were guaranteed to work and rarely deviated into something more unpredictable. 鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 fit our model or our mission,鈥?he says. Now an experiment might not work, but students build on their findings until they discover something that does. 鈥淭hey see the value in failure,鈥?he says, even if they don鈥檛 always like it. 鈥淎nd that resembles the actual scientific process. Science won鈥檛 give you victories just because you ask for it.鈥?lt;/p>

There was also a space for trailblazing students who are on the leading edge of ePortfolio development. Seniors Ryan Rigney and Holly Nguyen, part of the inaugural class of Grand Challenge Scholars, said presenting at a faculty showcase was reflective of their experiences at WPI. 鈥淲e were the pilot group setting the stage for future students,鈥?says Rigney. 鈥淚t鈥檚 nice to leave one last mark on the school in a sense. Either of our advisors could have made this presentation, but the fact that they are having us do this shows how much trust the school puts into us.鈥?Knowing the university has larger plans for students to complete the ePortfolios, Nguyen says the opportunity to talk about such a new program is exciting. 鈥?lt;a>The WPI Plan is such a unique aspect that we all get to experience,鈥?she says, 鈥渁nd this program will be a model for all WPI students.鈥?lt;/p>

Several years ago, an endowment let Demetry enlarge the grants program and create Faculty Learning Communities where groups of faculty work on similarly themed, but independent, projects. Interestingly, Demetry says, many of these topics align with WPI鈥檚 broader strategic initiatives. 鈥淭he themes bubble up from faculty interest,鈥?she says. As a member of a project-based learning community with other faculty, Ottmar likes to see the methods other faculty use to improve learning and think of how that might inform her own methods.

Similar to student poster presentation days like GRIE, faculty in the showcase might come with props like a poster, a student鈥檚 work, or results from the faculty member鈥檚 own research. But the atmosphere is purposefully more casual, says Demetry. She is mindful of the rigors of the timing (end of the academic year), but believes it鈥檚 a fitting way to close the year.

鈥淐onversations and curiosity are important,鈥?she says. 鈥淭he end of the year is a time for celebration and a good time to make visible how hard and how creatively our faculty have been working to keep improving our students鈥?learning experiences.鈥?

- By Julia Quinn-Szcesuil

LIFE as a Part-time Grad Student

amracicot — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 12:00:00 +0000

The game of LIFE is legendary for the unexpected turns, twists, and surprises that change players鈥?fates on a dime. When you鈥檙e a working professional with personal obligations, financial stresses, and a desire to further your education, that fictional board game upheaval can feel quite real.

Earlier this month, the Academic & Corporate Engagement division invited faculty and staff to LIFE as a Part-time Graduate Student, using the board game concept to illustrate the varied campus supports for part-time grad students.

Coordinated efforts between Corporate & Professional Education (CPE), Academic Affairs, the Academic Technology Center, Career Development Center, Academic & Corporate Engagement, and the Foisie Business School help part-time graduate students, some of whom never set foot on campus, navigate the tricky path of a rigorous course load and life as a working professional.

Jody Reis, senior manager of online learning with CPE, says students from all over the world take WPI courses thanks to technology. But the student鈥檚 path from inquiry to enrollment to graduation is not without challenges.

Whether students take some classes on campus or all classes from a different country鈥攐r perhaps complete courses through their workplace鈥攖hey all receive the same level of education. In addition to creating flexible class times, the university customizes programs for corporate partners鈥攕uch as BAE Systems, Pfizer, and United Technologies鈥攁nd makes coursework convenient for students to fit into their schedules.

Prompted by the behind-the-scenes work that鈥檚 unknown to many on campus, the event featured two paths a student could take鈥攐nline or corporate鈥攚ith posters and teams at each stop. From corporate sales to ATC/faculty support to the Foisie Business School, the 鈥渟tops鈥?showed how WPI helps grad students, however they are completing a degree or certificate. Attendees discovered exactly how students move through the process and could chat with faculty members and staff who each play an essential role in bolstering students so they can reach their goals.

鈥淭he size of the program is impressive,鈥?Reis says. 鈥淲e have 1,500 graduate students taking online courses and more than 500 taking corporate programs with us. More than 120 faculty members teach online and more than 50 teach in a corporate setting.鈥?According to Reis, 28 percent of the May 2017 Master of Science degree graduates were from either an online or a corporate program. And the online program has seen a 9 percent enrollment growth over the past two years for students looking to take any one of the 17 online degrees and certificates offered.

鈥淧eople all over campus contribute to the education and experience of these grad students they never see. Showing the whole experience gives an appreciation and understanding of what grad students go through.鈥?鈥擱achel LeBlanc

Rachel LeBlanc, assistant vice president of ACE, says part-time grad students appreciate the guidance. 鈥淭hey have a lot to juggle and a lot to balance,鈥?she says. 鈥淭hey have all these life changes, they are furthering their education, and all while they are trying to get ahead in their careers.鈥?lt;/p>

Terence Carmichael Jr. is working full-time at Pfizer in Chicago while earning his online MS in robotics engineering. With a background in biomedical engineering and a goal of using robotics to help those who are physically disabled, Carmichael says WPI offered unmatched flexibility. 鈥淭his program would allow me to work full-time,鈥?he says. 鈥淚 have a goals-focused orientation. This was a viable route to get me where I want to go.鈥?Learning from such a distance isn鈥檛 easy, he says, but regular check-ins from WPI bring more connection.

鈥淓very single student is assigned to a student success manager who helps them navigate through the WPI graduate system,鈥?says Reis, 鈥渋ncluding everything from submitting their application, to making sure they meet the graduation requirements, to knowing how to make payments, to understanding how to connect with their professors.鈥?lt;/p>

Even corporate students who take the courses through their workplace welcome the guidance. A portfolio manager with longtime employer MITRE, Frank Picca is a student with the company鈥檚 MS in systems engineering cohort program. 鈥淚 have a wife and two sons,鈥?he says, 鈥淚 work full-time overseeing multiple different engineering teams, and I travel quite a bit for business. The WPI MSSE program is smartly organized so that folks like me can make it all work.鈥?Picca says the student success manager keeps everything on track. 鈥淜nowing that I can contact a real person at WPI who knows me this whole time really takes the worry out of all the crazy administrative stuff and allows me to be a student,鈥?he says. 鈥淭hat entire personal touch is huge to me.鈥?lt;/p>

If students take a break from courses or veer off track, the team is there to help them overcome barriers so they can graduate. There鈥檚 even time management assistance so students can plan for course obligations that might include class time, project work, and group work.

鈥淲e want people to be successful,鈥?says LeBlanc. 鈥淭his kind of support helps them get through.鈥?lt;/p>

- By Julia Quinn-Szcesuil

$40,000 Distributed in Grad Student Travel Funds

amracicot — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 12:00:00 +0000

To elevate the importance of graduate students presenting at conferences, WPI recently implemented the Graduate Student Travel Fund, a formal program to give grad students access to funds that allow them to travel to professional conferences.

The third cycle of awards was just completed, with nearly 70 master鈥檚 and PhD student applicants receiving funds to attend and present at conferences worldwide. Each student is expected to give a presentation at the conference and also to network, so they can begin to establish a base of colleagues.

Terri Camesano

鈥淏efore we started doing this, people didn鈥檛 understand the diversity of the conferences we are presenting at,鈥?says Terri Camesano, dean of graduate studies. Graduate students go to conferences to present their own work, but they are also helping spread the word about all the research going on at WPI, she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important to get students out there so people know about WPI.鈥?lt;/p>

This latest cycle of funds distributed $40,000 to grad students who submitted an application that included a recommendation from an advisor on a specific conference. Interested students worked with their advisors to find the best conference venue to present their work; students also must have a secured (or nearly secured) invitation to present at the conference they plan to attend.

Because conferences are so varied鈥攆rom the most intimate meeting of specific topics to the largest interdisciplinary gathering of more than 10,000 participants鈥攕tudents want one where they can make the most impact with their research presentations and where they also glean information about others鈥?current research. Choosing the best option can take some investigating. 鈥淭hey need to demonstrate why that鈥檚 the right venue for their presentation and what鈥檚 the value of that meeting,鈥?says Camesano. Faculty help students decide on the conferences as some will help maximize the exposure of particular research and make more of an impact.

Huimin (Ramona) Ren plans to attend and present at HCI International 2017 in Vancouver this July and says each conference experience is important so students can learn how to make a presentation and tell a story about their research. 鈥淭his kind of ability is very important for our future work,鈥?says Ren. 鈥淲e can have a chance to communicate with other researchers, which can help us open our minds.鈥?lt;/p>

Faculty and departments have always sent grad students to conferences with their own funding and will continue to do so. But this institution-level commitment shows that WPI recognizes the value grad students bring to the school鈥檚 reputation. The awards may not cover the entire cost of conference attendance, says Camesano, so the faculty advisor or department must commit to contributing the rest of the necessary funds in order for the student to attend. In general, the Graduate Student Travel Fund awards seek to cover attendance fees, travel, and accommodations, and will fund one conference per year per qualified and awarded student.

Anthony D鈥橝mico

鈥淧resenting at international conferences is important,鈥?says Camesano because students present in front of the experts in the field and can establish an essential worldwide network early in their careers.

Students find the conferences offer opportunities not found on campus. 鈥淢any conferences have job fairs or poster sessions, so the networking can easily lead to career opportunities like postdoc positions or job offers for the students,鈥?says chemical engineering PhD candidate Anthony D鈥橝mico.

In May, D鈥橝mico presented his work on 鈥渟tress build in additively manufactured (3D printed) parts鈥?at the SAMPE Seattle 2017 conference in May. 鈥淚t was a fantastic conference for networking as it is a more industry-focused conference than most I've been to," he says. "I had the opportunity to speak with people from a couple of leading AM companies and discuss my work with them, and we're now working on setting up collaborations to both broaden the area our work can cover and help get it out into industry so it can have a real impact.鈥?lt;/p>

Presenting at prestigious conferences also helps students develop another excellent skill that won鈥檛 appear on a resume but is obvious in any interview: confidence. 鈥淭he people they are presenting in front of are strangers, but they could be competitors, too,鈥?says Camesano, so students must be well-prepared and well-versed.

D鈥橝mico says the SAMPE conference gave him perspective. 鈥淏oth presenting my work and discussing it with people throughout the conference helped people know what it is we are doing,鈥?he says, 鈥渁nd it gave me a better idea of where our work fit in the broader research space.鈥?lt;/p>

- By Julia Quinn-Szcesuil

Grad Students Receive Certificate in College Teaching

amracicot — Fri, 26 May 2017 12:00:00 +0000

Earlier this month, five WPI graduate students took their education one step further and completed the Certificate in College Teaching program from the Higher Education Consortium of Central Massachusetts (HECCMA).

Khalid Alzahrani (Foisie Business School), Jake Hughes, Jessica Rosewitz, and Xiaokong Yu (Civil & Environmental Engineering), and Alex Norton (Interactive Media & Game Development) joined the ranks of more than 60 WPI graduate students who have completed the program, which has its roots right here on campus.

The six-credit program originated in the mid-1990s with a seminar and practicum in college teaching for graduate students and, occasionally, faculty members. With grant funding from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education through the University of New Hampshire, the program became a project of the Colleges of Worcester Consortium, HECCMA鈥檚 predecessor organization. Once the original funding expired, WPI and Clark University stepped in to help support and expand the program until it was fully transferred to the consortium.

Chrysanthe Demetry

The program, hosted at Worcester State University, consists of classes held online and in person taught by professors from WPI, Clark, Worcester State University, Tufts University, College of the Holy Cross, and others, and is open to anyone who has earned an undergraduate degree. WPI students and faculty interested in participating in the program also receive full tuition reimbursement from the Class of 鈥?7 Excellence in Teaching Fund and the dean of graduate studies.

This aspect of the program was particularly appealing to Alzahrani. 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 see an opportunity like this without utilizing it,鈥?he says. 鈥?..after finishing the first course, I realized that I should take all the courses I can, even if they鈥檙e not covered by WPI. It was extremely helpful, and [was] one of the best preparations for my upcoming career in academia.鈥?lt;/p>

Chrysanthe Demetry, associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Morgan Teaching and Learning Center, believes that the program is invaluable, both for students who want to teach college courses and those who are undecided but have an interest in exploring their options.

鈥淎nyone interested in a career in academia should have some formal education about college teaching and how people learn,鈥?Demetry explains. 鈥淭he assumption has been that if you earn a PhD in your field, you have the expertise to be able to teach 鈥?but without formal training, we tend to teach as we were taught, with methods that worked reasonably well for us but may not work well for a large portion of learners.鈥?lt;/p>

鈥淣ow that I am a full-time faculty member, I still find myself drawing on the lessons I learned and the experiences I gained as part of the [Certificate in College Teaching] program.鈥?-Emily Evans

For Norton, the idea of teaching had been something he knew he wanted to pursue even before he entered the IMGD graduate program. 鈥淚 started teaching at STEM and video game camps the summer after my freshman year of college,鈥?he says. 鈥淣ot only was it rewarding to share subjects I鈥檓 passionate about, but I was just as thrilled as my campers when they created a game or animation.鈥?lt;/p>

Norton, who is currently a high school media arts teacher, credits his WPI education for helping him become an expert in his subject matter, and the teaching certificate program with providing instruction on how to actually teach a course, with topics such as making lessons engaging, motivating students, handling discipline or cheating issues, or designing an online course.

Emily Evans, who earned her PhD in mathematics from WPI in 2011, is now an assistant math professor at Brigham Young University in Utah. 鈥淣ow that I am a full-time faculty member, I still find myself drawing on the lessons I learned and the experiences I gained as part of the program,鈥?she says.

Hughes and Rosewitz found that the program had an invaluable impact on their future careers as civil and environmental engineering professors.

鈥淚 see future classrooms as rich learning experiences for both instructor and student, and full of potential for educational research,鈥?says Rosewitz. 鈥淚鈥檓 ready for this next part of my career to begin.鈥?lt;/p>

- By Allison Racicot