In the Spring 2018 Newsletter I listed a series of “what if” questions surrounding the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in STEM education at Wright State (see here as a reminder). I’d now like to add a few more of these statements, and provide some corresponding answers this time: What if CoSM sponsored an innovation weekend event and it was wildly successful? What if students from across campus tackled a real world problem with such vigor that they impressed a group of regional content experts with their imaginative solutions? What if this opened the door to new ideas for engaging students in the core sciences to improve student retention and success? The answers to these not-so-rhetorical questions are all positive: “We did”, “They did” and “It will”.
An article in this newsletter describes the results of our first CoSM Innovation Weekend event, along with a link to a YouTube video feature. I think that the article does a great job of elaborating on these points and so I will leave that for you to read, but suffice it to say that we are excited to continue this approach to student engagement and experiential learning. The most important message that I wish to share here is that we need your help – we want ideas for our students to tackle, we need mentors to help oversee the students’ efforts, we need judges to evaluate the solutions that the students develop and, of course, we need student participants to engage in this learning process. If you are reading this message, we have a role for you and would be delighted to share the next experience with you.
The 2018/2019 academic year will bring additional focus on student success initiatives. The math co-requisite remediation strategy will expand to more broadly impact student success in several critical gateway math and statistic courses. The new CoSM degree programs discussed in the last few newsletters will continue to grow and expand. The new centralized advising structure will continue to serve student needs and will expand this year to include support for student career needs. We will also be revising our approaches to pre-professional student support to try to be more holistic and intrusive in the success of our future doctors, dentists, optometrists, and physician assistants (among others). These are all critical to our mission.
In addition to the great stories of success included in this newsletter, I will also preview briefly some upcoming CoSM stories that will be hitting the newsfeed in the coming months. We will be welcoming a few new faculty members to CoSM departments this fall and will profile their work in the near term. As alluded to in the spring newsletter, we also have new research funding successes to share as soon as the stories are finished, something that is always uplifting and endlessly exciting. Finally, this fall we will be rolling out new roles for CoSM student groups and expanding the engagement of Dean’s Circle students in fostering success of those around them. Stay tuned for more information on these items.
Last year at this time, we welcomed our new president, Dr. Cheryl Schrader, to campus. This year we welcome our new provost, Dr. Susan Edwards, to Wright State. Dr. Edwards is a biologist by training and will have a CoSM faculty appointment within the Biological Sciences department. Tom Sudkamp, who has served as provost for the past three year, will return to the faculty ranks. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Tom for his strong leadership through a very difficult time. Although the financial environment remains challenging, the university has made great strides in aligning its expenses to its revenues. The ongoing strategic planning process will help to define the focus areas targeted for future strategic investment. CoSM representatives have been strongly engaged in this process and will work hard to ensure that the region’s STEM needs are included in the discussion.
As we enter the 2018/2019 academic year with a renewed emphasis on student success and engagement, join me in identifying new and better ways to spark student innovation and imagination as we work to transform the Dayton region and the world beyond.
