Two T-STEM Centers are Awarded Engineering Recruitment Program Grants

The 80th Texas Legislature enacted House Bill 2978, Engineering Recruitment Program, to increase recruitment and retention of students in higher education engineering programs through summer camps on academic campuses and scholarships.  Visit the THECB site for more information.

The purpose of the Engineering Recruitment Program is to provide grants to any general academic teaching institution to implement one-week summer programs for middle and high school students or to provide scholarships to students pursuing a degree in engineering at any general academic teaching institution. Summer programs shall be designed for middle and/or high school students that will introduce participating students to math, science, and engineering concepts that they may encounter in an engineering degree program.

On January 25, 2008, the Commissioner of Higher Education announced the awards to eleven universities. Of the eleven universities chosen, two T-STEM Centers were selected: The Texas Tech T-STEM Center and East Texas STEM Center at UT – Tyler.   See below for a short description of their planned camps.

The Texas Tech Engineering Summer Camp will increase awareness about the relationship between engineering and science, technology, and math in summer camp classes offered through already existing summer camp, “Shake Hands with Your Future” (“Shake Hands”). The camp will involve engineering students and STEM K-12 teachers as instructors, and seek to increase enrollment in “Shake Hands’” STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) courses by offering scholarships to participants from economically disadvantaged families, in order to increase the awareness of camp participants to STEM disciplines.

“Shake Hands With Your Future” is a 6 nights 5 days residential summer camp, on the Texas Tech campus, for students entering grades 8-11 from TX, NM, OK, LA. “Shake Hands” provides opportunities for children to explore academic interests. Rigorous but fun un-graded classes in the humanities, sciences, and engineering emphasize creative problem solving and hands-on learning. Students enroll in two classes—15 hours of instruction in the morning class and 12 hours in the afternoon class. Shake Hands with Your Future has existed since 1980 and has an average annual enrollment of 286 participants. The camp fee is $595 which includes room and board, instruction, and extra-curricular activities like swimming and museum visits. 

In 2008 “Shake Hands” will offer courses in Architecture, Forensics, Animal Sciences, Experimental Sciences, Chemistry, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Lego Robotics, Art, Law, Biotechnology, Theater Arts, Anatomy and Physiology, and Film Making. 

East Texas STEM Center - University of Texas, Tyler

RISE Camp (East Texas Research Involving Student Engineers)  Project will be a one week residential camp for high school students that will introduce students to engineering and the engineering design process, enhance mathematics and science skills, apply science and mathematics to solve engineering design challenges, and expose them to college life and engineering careers. In addition, students will interact with engineering faculty and students who will serve as instructors and role models.  Some funds have already been allocated from the East Texas STEM Center to support provide additional support for the camp in summer 2008 to expose high school students to engineering problems within technical and social contexts, and to encourage them to enroll in college. One outcome of the RISE program is to develop the capability to design, build, test, fly, and recover high altitude science and engineering instrumentation using a high altitude balloon.