Welcome to spring. When I interviewed here roughly two years ago I stated in one of the public forums that I felt confident that I understood the needs of the Science and Mathematics programs, but that I also understood what it takes to persist through March and April in Ohio. I showed a picture of my backyard (at the time) with green grass and flowering trees one week, and 6 inches of snow covering it all just five days later. True to form, this week alone we had accumulated snow Monday, electrical storms and tornados Tuesday, and blowing snow again on Wednesday. Feels like home to me.
At the risk of appearing one dimensional or overly repetitious, I nevertheless want to start where I left off in Fall - talking about student-focused initiatives. At that time, I mentioned that this would be the year we roll out new curricular offerings, including new programs in Neuroscience, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Public Health Science and options in Actuarial Science. Those programs have gotten off to great starts and in some instances have greatly exceeded our best-case enrollment scenarios – a very good problem to have.
Beyond that, however, we have made real progress in expanding our experiential learning efforts. As discussed in one of the attached articles, Jason Deibel, Adrienne Traxler (both in Physics) and Meredith Rogers (Biological Sciences) recently were awarded a roughly $1M grant to expand the Applying Scientific Knowledge (ASK) program in CoSM. This program provides training, exposure, mentoring and research opportunities for undergraduates across the college. Two things really stand out to me as I share this information. The first is that the National Science Foundation, the project’s funding agency, deemed this work to be among the very best applications nationwide – almost certainly in the top 10% - something for which we can and should be very proud. The second is that the ASK program validates our contention that an innovative approach to engaging students really can have merit and help prepare students for career needs. The funding provides us with a rare opportunity to expand a program that is core to our mission, thereby allowing us to embed it in the culture of our college.
We have also made strides in two other areas of experiential learning. Over the last few months, we’ve identified a large number of new internship opportunities for CoSM students across a variety of disciplines - from math and physics to chemistry, psychology and biology. All are guaranteed, paid internships at regional companies and health systems that provide an avenue to the type of career opportunities that I truly believe will allow us to expand interest in regional STEM options. I fully expect the successes in this arena to grow in the coming years as we move toward my goal of having experiential opportunities available to every CoSM student.
The other event is CoSM’s first “Innovation Weekend” experience. Taking place April 6-8, we will lock students from across campus down in an intense “hackathon” event during which they will focus their creative energies on solving a problem of regional or national importance – in this case the issue of effectively visualizing patient medical data in real time under stressful situations (battlefield, natural disaster, active shooter, etc.). Dayton is the place to hold this event – we have national experts on the topic in the military, public and private sectors right here in town, and many have offered their valuable time to work with the students on identifying novel solutions to this long-standing issue. You will have to wait to hear about the solutions, but I have already committed to running four of these events next year on new and challenging topics. I’d like to hear from you if you have ideas, or simply want to be a part of this process of changing the hearts and minds of our STEM students by exposing them to important “what if” questions: What if I could gain access to successful entrepreneurs from the region – how might that change my career plans? What if I met some new colleagues from across campus – how might that change my college experience? What if I discovered I had a knack for solving big, real world problems – how might I use that information? What if I came up with a solution that changed the lives of people in the region and across the globe?
This newsletter includes other examples of current and former students asking these types of questions and making differences – I hope you have a chance to read them over.
Before ending, I wish to share that we have had some great funding successes among our faculty researchers as well. I’ll call out only two by name: Michael Leffak (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) and Kate Excoffon
