Beyond the Classroom
This page is dedicated to other programs and activities which I direct or facilitate as part of teaching at SCU.
The SCU Grand Challenge Scholars Program combines opportunities to engage, understand and help address the grand challenges facing society, while inspiring innovative ideas and designs that will help people around the world achieve a higher standard of living and quality of life. Through completion of the five components of the program (shown below), students will have the opportunity to engage in research relating to their selected grand challenge, explore interdisciplinary coursework, gain an international perspective, engage in entrepreneurship, and give back to the community through service learning.
SCU’s mission is to educate the whole person within the Jesuit, Catholic tradition, making student learning our central focus. We do this by continuously improving our curriculum and co-curriculum, strengthening our scholarship and creative work, and serving the communities of which we are a part in Silicon Valley and around the world. The proposed Grand Challenge Scholars Program (GCSP) at SCU aligns well with and strengthens the University’s mission by empowering our students to improve and enhance their leadership skills and increase their social/global awareness.
NAE’s aspirational vision for the 21st century is for engineers to deliver solutions for the “continuation of life on the planet, making our world more sustainable, secure, healthy, and joyful”
As the Director of the GCSP , I wrote and submitted a proposal for the SCU GCSP, and was accepted as a NAE GCSP institution in Sept. 2019!
COVID complicated things beginning March 2020, as we were only able to just begin the program prior to online learning requirements. During this initial period, I sent two students to Arizona State University for the Grand Challenges Summer Institute in summer (2019). The summer institute provides "the opportunity to build a community on campus and gain exposure to the Grand Challenges of Engineering before entering their first semester. Students received an introduction into the Grand Challenges Scholars program, such as how the Grand Challenges impacts engineering, learn about the five component requirements of the program, and be provided research tours and hands on experiences." I'm happy to report that the students learned a lot about the GCSP, and also had a wonderful experience networking with other Grand Challenges scholars from around the country! This experience eventually yielded our first GCSP graduate!
We are happy to report a restart to the program this year (AY23-24) and have admitted 10 new scholars to the SCU GCSP this fall (see program timeline figure). We have updated our GCSP website and have recently been awarded (Spring 2024) a SCU Board of Regents RELI Grant to fund travel for our scholars to next year's annual GCSP conference!!
I have also developed a GCSP Canvas Learning Mangement System (Camino) site that includes a digital badge system for students to track progress through the GCSP program that is awarded for each GCSP competency.
SCU Engineering students who complete the program will achieve the distinction of Grand Challenge Scholar, endorsed by both SCU and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and will be uniquely prepared to collaborate and succeed in a transdisciplinary and global environment.
Advising
To successfully navigate interdisciplinary experiences at SCU, students must leverage courses and extra-curricular experiences across many academic units at SCU and beyond. Guidance in this process often takes place during advising sessions, but due to variability among faculty advisors, changing student interests, and difficulties in communication, students may not always be aware of all their options. Unfortunately, this lack of transparency particularly disadvantages first generation and underrepresented minority students.
To help address this variability and ensure that students are getting an effective advising experience, my colleagues, Christelle Sabatier (Biology & Neuroscience), Chris Bachen (Office of Assessment), and I (General Engineering), have proposed (and received funding for) a new Milestones for Student Success in STEM project which will create advising/mentoring tools which showcase student progress and development and facilitate discussions pertaining to degree fulfillment, co-/extra-curricular activities, and career opportunities, as described below.
Milestones for Student Success in STEM (STEM Milestones)
Brief Summary of Project
The overall purpose is to support and empower students’ agency in identifying their goals and charting their course through an interdisciplinary major. In addition, we seek to track and assess student degree progress and learning gains at the program level. This project proposes to implement an ePortfolio digital platform (we’ve named STEM Milestones) for two interdisciplinary majors at SCU, Neuroscience and General Engineering. STEM Milestones would:
allow students to document and explore their degree path through a specific degree program;
facilitate critical reflection on diverse educational experiences;
better connect faculty advisors with student goals and progress; and
allow for programmatic assessment.
By intentionally targeting interdisciplinary programs embedded in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and School of Engineering (SoE), we hope to build out and assess resources that can be leveraged independent of College/School affiliation by other interested programs.
Portfolium Digital Pathways and Badging
The STEM Milestones project uses Portfolium Digital Pathways to help students navigate their university experience. An advising track for both General Engineering and Neuroscience is being developed that will prompt students to reflect on their interests, progress, and career aspirations. An example created for the SCU Core Pathways is shown.
Portfolium roadmap example created for the SCU Core Pathways. A similar guided roadmap for advising is being created!
The goal is for students to reflect on their progress through their program, connecting curricular and extra-curricular activities towards their future career goals. Reflective prompts within milestones would have students consider coursework, SCU career center resources, career documentation (resumes, cover letters, etc.), internship opportunities, and any other questions, concerns or issues that the student identifies.
