ECSEL

Engineering Coalition of Schools for Excellence in Education and Leadership) is a coalition of seven schools and colleges of engineering that entered into a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation in 1990. The City College of New York, Howard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Morgan State University, The Pennsylvania State University, University of Maryland, and The University of Washington engaged in a ten-year effort to transform undergraduate engineering education and increase the diversity of engineering graduates.

Our vision for achieving both of these goals has been the imaginative integration of design activities throughout the educational pathways of our students - including the K - 14 pipeline. We've learned that - teamed-based design activities can be a powerful driver for the transformation of the culture of engineering education - faculty change is a multi-year time scale process - design activities allow for mutually beneficial alliances between community colleges and universities and between K - 12 schools and universities - management of a large scale systemic educational reform does not follow other traditional management models. - assessment is critical but new to most engineering faculty ECSEL concentrated resources on four thematic areas: Learning by Design, Our Role in the K - 14 Community, Student and Faculty Development, and Evaluation and Assessment.

In program areas, we completed the institutionalization of our freshmen team-based design activities. Internal assessments showed that these activities benefit retention. We partnered with community colleges for dissemination and collaboration. Team-based design activities form the basis of secondary school alliances. Expansion and institutionalization of engineering science core course changes are reaching a large scale. We have been so successful that it is now difficult to tell "ECSEL" from "non-ECSEL" courses on many of our campuses.

As we approach year 2000, the emphasis is on assuring institutionalization and dissemination of the many lessons learned. Faculty development continues to present a significant opportunity. ECSEL Accomplishments at Morgan State University Under the themes, Learning by Design and Faculty Development, the Morgan engineering faculty has grasped and implemented hands-on techniques for transforming their class environment from chalk and talk, lecture style … to open-ended exercises, active learning experiences, industry-driven interdisciplinary projects, etc.

On November 24, 1998, Morgan ECSEL sponsored the Learning by Design Faculty Workshop for the purpose of having the engineering faculty share their pedagogy. This workshop successfully brought together the faculty from the three disciplines (Civil Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Industrial Engineering) as well as faculty from Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics in a dialogue of addressing the introduction of design projects in the classroom. Morgan engineering faculty will be participating in the MIT-ECSEL Workshop scheduled for April 30 - May 1, 1999. The workshop will focus on Curriculum Reform and Learning by Design, Faculty Development - Politics, Policies and the "Real Deal", and Industry and Curriculum Reform. Activities under "Our Role in the K - 14 Community and Student .

Development themes were combined such that engineering students would be involved in the planning, development and implementation of pre-college programs as well as be actively involved with the School of Engineering administration. The student engineering organizations: Tau Beta Pi Association, NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers), SWE (Society of Women Engineers), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), IIE (Institute of Industrial Engineers), SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), and ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) formed the Engineering Student Organization Council (ESOC). This council is comprised of presidents/representatives of these organizations. ESOC has one to two meetings per semester with Dr. Eugene M. DeLoatch, Dean of the School of Engineering to discuss the student climate. Through the support of ECSEL, ESOC has been able to plan, develop and implement the ECSEL/ESOC Saturday Academy and Middle Passage Programs. Since 1995, these programs have become the primary outreach programs of ECSEL and ESOC.

The Saturday Academy focuses on Learning by Design projects/activities to expose elementary, middle and high school students to the various science, engineering, and mathematics careers. The Middle Passage program adopted Chinquapin Middle School to concentrate the Learning by Design theme with the students at that school. Since 1992, ECSEL has maintained a partnership with Southwestern High School in supporting an honors curriculum called "ECSEL" which was established at the school. The "ECSEL" curriculum at Southwestern High School allows students to enroll in college preparatory courses for science, engineering, and mathematics scholars. A current activity with Southwestern High School includes an SAT preparation tutorial. Since ESOC's inception in 1995, from the Computer Science Department, SACS (Society for the Advancement of Computer Science) joined and became an integral part of the ESOC organization. An invitation has been extended to SAME (Society of American Military Engineers), to join ESOC. The official chapter of the Morgan State University post of SAME was presented in December 1998. In these last two years of ECSEL our goal is to disseminate and institutionalize our endeavors.

Morgan State University ECSEL Leadership

Dr. Eugene M. DeLoatch ………………..….Dean, School of Engineering

Dr. Carl White ……………………………………. Principal Investigator

Ms. Myra W. Curtis ……………………….........Local Program Director

Mrs. Aisha Bey ……………………….......….. Administrative Assistance

Learning by Design Task Leader: Dr. Adeboyejo Oni

Our Role in K - 14 Community Task Leaders: ESOC (Engineering Student Organization Council), Dr. Carl White, Ms. Myra W. Curtis, Mr. Clifton Kearney Student and Faculty Development Task Leaders: ESOC, Dr. Gregory Wilkins Assessment and Evaluation Task Leader: Mr. Corey Dickens.