Brief Project Overview:

Partners for Innovation in Information Technology (PIIT) is a three-year project with the goal of improving enrollment and retention rates in Computer Science and Information Technology (CS/IT). PIIT has two foci:

1. Recruiting additional talented students into CS/IT majors

2. Retaining (and graduating) additional students in CS/IT majors

Top Contributions:

1. Introducing high school students to careers in computer science/information technology.

2. Engaging computer science majors in real-world problems as part of class assignments incorporated into courses.

3. Conducting summer software team projects mentored by a faculty member or graduate student to solve a real-world problem for a participating company.

Partners for Innovation in Information TechnologyMiddle Tennessee State University (MTSU)

College of Basic and Applied Sciences PI: Thomas J. Cheatham Co PIs: Cen Li, Zhijiang Dong, Kevin Harris, Jian Fu

NSF Award #0917840 3 Year Award Start Date: 15 July 2009

Top Challenges:

1. Working with local high school to conduct seminars and recruit summer camp participants.

2. Finding real-world projects with the appropriate conditions suitable to use as classroom exercises.

3. Identifying companies with real-word problems suitable for a “summer team project” environment.

Program Activities:1. Recruitment

• Conducting CS/IT Professional Seminars for participating High Schools

• Conducting CS/IT Summer Computer Camps - all camps are 1 week (5 day, 40 hour):

◦ Alice Camp

◦ Robotics Camp

◦ Multi-Media Programming Camp

2. Retention

• Engaging computer science majors in real-world problems as part of class assignments incorporated into courses.

• Conducting summer software team projects mentored by a faculty member or graduate student to solve a real-world problem for a participating company.

Partners:

Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) is a large (25,000 students), comprehensive, Ph.D. granting institution founded in 1911.

Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (AAMU) is a land-grant university and a chartered Historically Black College/University (HBCU).

Nashville State Community College (NSCC) is a public, two-year comprehensive community college with 7,000 students founded in 1970 in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Nashville Technology Council, an affiliate of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, is an exclusive, C6 nonprofit organization devoted to helping the Middle Tennessee technology community succeed.

Mind2Marketplace (M2M) is an organization dedicated to helping bring the brightest and best ideas in middle Tennessee technology to reality, with job creation the ultimate goal. M2M’s service area stretches from Huntsville, AL to Oak Ridge, TN.

Key Attributes of our Innovation Ecosystem:

Questioning & Curiosity:1. Can we engage high school students in computing activities and interest them in careers in computing?

2. Will engaging computing professionals in computing discussions with high school students increase the student’s interest in careers in computing?

3. Can teams of college students solve a meaningful real-world computing problem in a summer project?

Risk Taking:1. Students solving a real-world problem is fraught with risks—What do you do if it is not finished? How do you manage the interactions of students with the public?

2. Can we successfully leverage a NSF-CPATH project at MTSU that is using real-world problems in computing courses?

3. Can a regional university, an HBCU, a community college, two technology organization, and a group of school districts form an effective team?

Openness:1. Bi-weekly conference calls with all institutions of higher education (IHE) across two states.

2. Great discussions with companies about real-world problems for summer teams—what is too hard, too easy, too complex.

3. Allowing each IHE to add their own twist to the components of the project.

Collaboration Across Fields:1. The focus of “PIIT: Partners for Innovation in Information Technology” is on computing, but the project engages engineers, scientists, business managers, mathematicians, and computing professionals.

2. We have a great industry/higher education/high school partnership to recruit and retain students in computing majors.

3. We have a great IHE partnership across three very different institutions—a regional comprehensive, an HBCU, and a community college.

Placing Partners in “New Environments” & “Playgrounds”:1. Industry professionals are making presentations about computing careers and activities in area high schools.

2. Industry partners will be working with undergraduates from IHE partners to solve real-world problems in their companies.

3. Three very different IHEs across two states are partnering to address a computing workforce issue.

Leading/Inspiring for Surprising or Unexpected Results1. Coordinating robotic kit purchases across three institutions is surprisingly difficult.

2. Physical one-site team meetings are very difficult, but conference calls help greatly.

3. IRB approval can be a challenge across three IHEs.

National Science Foundation Partnerships For InnovationGrantee’s Meeting April 25-27, 2010 Arlington, VA. .PFI .

PIIT Team: (l-r, row 1) Jian Fu (Co-PI Alabama A&M), Cen Li (Co-PI MTSU),

Rose Johnson (Grants Coordinator, MTSU),Zhijiang Dong (Co-PI, MTSU),

(l-r, row 2), Kevin Harris (Co-PI, NashvilleState Community College, David Welch

(Div Coord, NSCC), Ted Washington (Assoc VP, NSCC), Tom Cheatham

(PI and Dean, MTSU)