EDUCATION
they come into your company they are ready to move forward as well as we’re giving our students international experiences.” Harris added he and his colleagues drive home the importance of leadership to the 1,352 students in Prairie View’s engineering program. (Prairie View engineering school has six departments including chemical engineering, civil engineering, environmental engineering, electrical engineering and computer science.) “A lot of our corporate partners are telling us…that for our students to be that leader you have to be able to broaden yourself and take on opportunities not only within Texas, the U.S., but abroad. We’re really taking a hard approach to that,” he said. Prairie View University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering currently has partnership agreements with eight countries including China, India, Egypt, Spain and Nigeria.
“One of the wonderful things at our institutions is that we have a creative skill set in our students, just by the nature of our students.
They look at the world differently.” – Robin Coger, dean of the college of engineering, North Carolina A&T State University
Robin Coger, Ph.D., dean of the college of engineering at North Carolina A&T State University (NCATSU), pointed out that federal agencies know the value of students who have attended HBCU premier programs such as the ones offered at NCATSU.
“Remember we are universities of talent,” said Coger.
“Talented professors, talented students, talented researchers— that’s in all of our schools. NCATSU offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in six programs including chemical biological and bio engineering; civil, architectural and environmental engineering; computer science; electrical and computer engineering and industrial and systems engineering. “We are cleared as a center of excellence when it comes to certain security-related matters,” Coger said. “The cybersecurity work that we’re doing ends up being a benefit to the nation. When you have three-letter agencies come to you because of the work that they need. They need innovative minds. One of the wonderful things at our institutions is that we have a creative skill set in our students, just by the nature of our students. They look at the world differently. So as you look at our schools and you have diversity, diversity. Diversity you say is color, absolutely, but the backgrounds of our students end up bringing a diversity of thought. And that diversity of thought is pretty critical when you’re sitting in a room that’s thinking one way and then suddenly someone looks at the problem in a very different way and comes up with an innovative solution.”
42 USBE&IT I SUMMER 2014
Lorraine Fleming, Ph.D., Howard University’s interim dean of the college of engineering, architecture and computer sciences, spoke of being proud of the work done at her college in nanotechnology in partnership with Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Habib Mohamadian, dean of Southern University’s college of engineering and computer science in Louisiana, noted that Southern partners with the University of Louisiana and that joint staff teach at both. He also spoke warmly of the collaboration that exists among the 14 HBCU and how they seek “common threads” so they can work together.
He said Southern also values international connections. “The international element in higher education, especially in STEM fields, is the concern other countries have,” said Mohamadian, explaining that foreign students are highly interested in attending American schools with strong and competitive STEM programs.
Southern University has memorandums of understanding with several universities in Africa, Turkey and other countries, he said.
When the conversation turned to what makes HBCU special, Eric Sheppard, dean of Hampton University’s school of engineering and technology, said “fulfilling dreams” is their true niche.
“We take young people who have a dream to be in STEM [science, technology, engineering and math], to be engineers, to contribute to what you all do for the world,” said Sheppard. He said some of these young people have had the kind of high school preparation that results in their college applications not matching a preconceived notion of what a potential engineer’s application should look like. “We give them a chance to fulfill that dream. Now they have to perform, but we give them an opportunity.”
Anita Farrington, dean of student affairs at New York
University’s school of engineering (Brooklyn Polytechnic), who sat in on the session with the deans, said not enough students considering graduate degrees are considering the programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. “I don’t think HBCUs are on our radar, and not just us,” said Farrington, adding that she’s been at NYU for 30 years and does the best she can do to spread the word about the schools and their programs. Taking the conversation about graduate programs in a
different direction, Harris of Prairie View said he holds that “talented African-American students should not have to pay for graduate school. The need is just that high.” He said he worked with his school’s finance administrators and reached an agreement to substantially boost their graduate students’ financial support.
Angela Benjamin, diversity programs manager at Accenture, spoke to the deans about how individuals such as herself could better partner with their schools. “I’m looking at ways to branch out,” said Benjamin. “I know we can buy talent but what else can we do.” She said she would like to get five to 10 students in the pipeline at her company and “show what kind of value they bring.”
www.blackengineer.com
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