WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University will use a Hewlett-Packard grant to develop and test a new teaching approach designed to boost the academic success of underrepresented minorities in engineering programs.

Photo from Orientation Seminar for Multiethnic Students in Engineering (ENGR 180) Fall 2008 Homecoming Celebration.

The teaching method represents a potential new model for retaining more underrepresented minorities and others who aren’t thriving in conventional engineering courses, said Jan Allebach, the Hewlett-Packard Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering who led a team of nine faculty members to secure the HP award.

Purdue is among 10 recipients selected from 200 applicants to receive an HP Innovations in Education grant.

The grant will be a catalyst for a new Purdue program called REACH – Reaching Excellence in Academic Achievement – that will help students learn in a cooperative and collaborative environment, Allebach said.

A major component of REACH focuses on the use of group-based learning and modularized coursework to assist and mentor students. The new “cohort” approach targets sophomores and juniors and focuses on collaborative learning and students mentoring each other in small groups.

“They come into this massive place, Purdue, and they just don’t thrive because they don’t see the connection to things they care about in real life,” Allebach said. “We are proposing something very radical. Usually the students take classes that meet two or three times a week during a 15-week semester, and we are going to completely alter that.”

The teaching approach has students taking fewer classes that are more concentrated. The courses – like summer sessions – are taught in half the time of ordinary courses. Students take three classes per session and two sessions in a semester. In each class, the students will work in groups of four to six.

“Many studies have shown that group-based learning improves acquisition and retention of information, higher-level thinking skills, interpersonal and communication skills, and self-confidence,” Allebach said. “Developing students’ ability to work effectively on teams is also vital because team-based work structures are prevalent in U.S. companies. Group-based learning is also effective in retaining underrepresented minorities and women, and it can be expected to benefit all students – underrepresented minorities, women and non-minority men.”

The HP grants are designed to address the national need for more students to pursue and complete high-quality, high-tech undergraduate degree programs in engineering, computer science, information systems and information technology.

Purdue will receive $280,000, primarily in equipment such as wireless tablet PCs, wide-format printers and high-power “Blade” workstations accessible from anywhere on campus.

The project has four major elements:

• A digital classroom. HP will provide 30 tablet PCs needed for the classroom. The computers, which have swiveling monitors, enable users to draw sketches using a penlike stylus and are well-suited for interactive, collaborative learning.
• A design laboratory for student collaborations that has 16 large-screen monitors. Students will hook up to their laptops for homework, projects and lab exercises.
• A dedicated server containing 16 Blade computers to be used by students for classwork.
• Resources to improve the project’s effectiveness, including tablet PCs, a digital projector and a large-format printer for posters.

“Innovation is key to expanding education opportunity, and HP is privileged to collaborate with educators around the world who are committed to exploring the exciting possibilities that exist at the intersection of teaching, learning and technology,” said Jim Vanides, worldwide program manager for HP Global Social Investments.

The teaching approach is consistent with the collaborative aspects of EPICS, or Engineering Projects in Community Service, co-founded by Leah Jamieson, Purdue’s John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering.

The EPICS program creates teams of undergraduates who earn academic credit for multiyear, multidisciplinary projects that solve engineering- and technology-based challenges for community service and educational organizations.

“I would imagine the success of EPICS was a factor in Purdue being chosen for this highly competitive grant,” Allebach said.

A major goal of the HP-funded work is to develop concepts that can be adopted by other institutions, he said.

The first classes under the new cohort model will be taught in spring or fall of 2010. Nine faculty members from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering are involved in REACH: Allebach, Mireille Boutin, Cordelia Brown, Cheng-Kok Koh, James Krogmeier, George Lee, David Love, Yung-Hsiang Lu and David Meyer.

The project includes a precollege outreach component, making the digital classroom available to participating high school students. The REACH program works closely with Purdue’s Minority in Engineering Program and the Women in Engineering Program in their summer camp activities.

Worldwide, HP is investing more than $17 million in mobile technology, cash and professional development as part of the global 2009 HP Innovations in Education grant initiative. This initiative follows HP’s five-year, $60 million investment in HP Technology for Teaching grants to more than 1,000 schools and universities in 41 countries.

More information about the 2009 HP Innovations in Education initiative and other global social investments is available at http://www.hp.com/go/grants

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — State Sens. Ron Alting (R-Lafayette) and Brandt Hershman (R-Wheatfield) yesterday (July 9) announced that Purdue University is a recipient of a $2,085,000 grant to help find ways to improve the nation’s transportation system.

Hershman said Purdue is only one of 10 universities across the country selected competitively by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). The monies are the third installment from USDOT and all federal dollars must be matched by non-federal contributions.

The NEXTRANS Center is the USDOT Region V Regional University Transportation Center, and covers the states of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Center was established in 2007 based on an award from USDOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) to conduct a multidisciplinary program of transportation research, education, and technology transfer through a Regional University Transportation Center headquartered at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

“These grant monies will help Purdue continue to serve as leaders in meeting the nation’s need for safe, efficient and environmentally-sound transportation systems,” Hershman said. “The university’s NEXTRANS center will apply cutting-edge technology to find infrastructure efficiencies and ultimately, help make our roads safer.”

NEXTRANS was established in 2007 – based on an award from US­DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration – in order to implement a multidisciplinary program of transporta­tion research, education and technology.

Alting said NEXTRANS has worked to improve traf­fic flow in congested intersections, calculate work zone delays, reduce emergency vehicle crashes, deter­mine which materials create the shortest braking distanc­es and improve railroad track inspections.

“Purdue has made significant strides in providing a program that shows great relevance to our nation’s transportation challenges,” Alting said. “Sharing knowledge and resources to disseminate best practices about transportation issues is an investment that could help save lives.”

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The City of Lafayette has learned that its request for $7,774,200 in neighborhood stabilization funding has been granted, Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski said. The money is targeted for the Glen Acres neighborhood. It will help create 15 new single-family homes, rehabilitate another eight homes and provide 89 rental units.

“This is huge. Huge news and huge funding,” Roswarski said. “We will receive the full amount we requested, and it’s going to save and revitalize an entire Lafayette neighborhood. We’re going to stretch every dollar and make an immeasurable impact on Lafayette through a unique public/private partnership.”

Funding was awarded by the Indiana Housing & Community Redevelopment Authority in response to a grant request submitted in March.

Of the $7.7 million, $5.5 million will be used to help transform the blighted property that once was the Bridgeway apartment complex into a new housing development. The city had earlier acquired the Bridgeway site and now is working with Brinshore Development LLC of Northbrook, Ill., to create the planned $15 million Chatham Square. It will be a 98-unit housing development, with 89 rental properties and nine single-family homes. Work on that project is slated to begin next summer and be completed by yearend 2011.

With the funding, the City of Lafayette also will purchase, renovate and resell eight single-family homes, and purchase and demolish another six. Habitat for Humanity will then build six new homes on those sites.

“Our vision is that homeownership in the Glen Acres neighborhood will rise, more families with children will move into the neighborhood and school enrolment will stabilize,” said Dennis Carson, director of redevelopment for the City of Lafayette.

“A city-wide team has been working on this project for months to identify innovative ways to save and enhance this neighborhood,” said Aimee Jacobsen, director of Community Development for the City of Lafayette. “We’ve reached out to many groups who have come to the table with ideas, assistance and enthusiasm.”

Those groups include Area IV Agency on Aging, Glen Acres School, Lafayette School Corp., Habitat for Humanity, Lafayette Neighborhood Housing Services, Purdue University Landscape Architecture, Tecumseh Area Partnership, Tippecanoe County Council on Aging, United Way of Greater Lafayette and Wabash Center.

The name for Chatham Square comes from an earlier owner of the property, the Chatham family, who farmed the property until the mid-1950s.

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Community Foundation of Greater Lafayette awarded a Community Beautification Field of Interest Grant, in the amount of $1,800, to the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette. The funds will be applied to landscaping the Art Museum grounds.

John Collier, Director of Campus Planning for Purdue, has volunteered to design a new landscaping plan for the museum on the Ninth Street hill, in Lafayette. Master Gardener, David Lahr volunteered to oversee and direct the installation and maintenance. This grant, combined with a $5,000 grant received from Tipmont REMC, in August, will fund the materials and labor necessary to complete the project. Work will begin this fall and be completed in spring, 2009.