IEEE activities in Pre-university Education

Moshe Kam

19 May 2012

Let us start with a terrible cliché:

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The Serenity Prayer

… give us grace to accept with serenitythe things that cannot be changed,Courage to change the thingswhich should be changed,and the Wisdom to distinguishthe one from the other.

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Reinhold Niebuhr, American, 1892-1971

Purpose

Provide a rough overview of IEEE’s activities in pre-university education– Rather technical, focus on administration and funding

Discuss the ways we organize our pre-university activities

Share thoughts about possible avenues for better sustainability, stability, development and impact

Make a few concrete suggestions for action

What are we trying to accomplish?

There is wide recognition that we (IEEE) owe pre-university students (and their parents and counselors) access to resources about engineering, technology, and computing (ETC)

Many volunteers and members consider it our inherent duty to be involved with the pre-university population– Part of what defines us as a Public Charity– Part of the “cost of doing business”

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Other MotivationsThe belief that we can improve understanding of ETC in the general population

The hope that we would increase interest in ETC as career paths– Especially in communities that have seen decrease in the

number of students in ETC

The hope that we can attract into ETC populations that are under-represented– Women– Under-represented minorities

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Other Motivations

The sense of many volunteers that this is a path for them to “do good work” and “give back to society”

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Points of Contact in the quest to improve Pre University Education

There are several populations we (IEEE volunteers) can try to “touch” (face-to-face or virtually):– Students – Parents of students– Teachers and School Counselors– Educators of ETC professionals and of educators of

future ETC professionals (e.g., Deans of Engineering, Deans of Education)

– Political leaders, regulators, and policy decision makers

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EAB’s decision…

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Population Virtually Face-to-face

Comments

Students YES NO Significant change*

Parents of Students YES NO

Teachers and School Counselors

YES YES TISP, Conferences

Academic Educators Deans etc.

NO YES Workshops, Summits

Leaders and decision makers

NO YES Workshops

* EAB discourages programs that put retirees in the pre-university classroom

We are engaged in many activities…

On line information dissemination and interaction– TryEngineering, TryNano, (Accreditation.org)

Activities for teachers and students– EPICS; Engineers Week; special activities in

conferences; participation in Science Fairs; initiation of local activities; local competitions

Participation in conferences of teachers and school counselors

Volunteer training– TISP, Project RE-SEED

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We are engaged in many activities…Exhibits in Museums – E-Scientia, Birla Center IEEE Exhibits (Hyderabad, India)

Symposia and workshops– Montevideo, Tampa, Hyderabad, Munich

Prizes, Awards, Competitions– E.g., Intel ISEF

Outreach and attempts to organize the Community– The Deans Summit– The multi-society TryEngineering collaboration

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Like many areas of IEEE activity – we are decentralized and dispersed

Like many areas of IEEE activity – we are decentralized and dispersed

The largest concentration of Pre-University activities in IEEE is in the Educational Activities Board (approximately $1M/year)

There is pre-university committee in IEEE-USA– Major annual event is Engineers Week

There is a pre-university committee in the IEEE Computer Society – Arranges competitions, provides awards in Science Fairs

There is an MGA liaison to EAB pre-university committee

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Many activities at the “local” levelParticipation by Sections in Science Fairs

Section initiatives– TISP in the Florida West Section – Robotic competitions in Maryland– E-Scientia in Uruguay– Museum activities in Hyderabad – …

Society Initiatives: events for pre-university students in Conferences – AES conferences– Activities for teachers in conferences of the Control Society – ….

Often some industry support is available 04/19/2314

Can we benefit from better coordination?

Yes, we suffer from duplication and inefficiency– Multiple committees discuss the same issues and try to

solve the same issues in different places

Yes, but it is not clear how to overcome organizational-unit boundaries and rivalry

Example: at ISEF we give out awards twice…– Once as IEEE– Once as the IEEE Computer Society– The value of our ISEF awards has eroded by 40% in 10

years but we are not doing anything about it

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Can we benefit from better coordination?

We need to accept that to some degree we will never be fully coordinated– The positive aspect: there is nothing wrong in a local

Section working with local schools and students without across-IEEE coordination

– The negative aspect: sometimes our unintended federated nature is an obstacle to coordination and to efficiency.

Within the realm of the possible: – Take action to reach more complete sharing of

information– Try to make all pre-university activity

information available in one place 04/19/2316

A side note: in-house rifts

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Financial SupportA host of pre-university activities were supported over the years by the New Initiatives Committee and by the Life Member Committee

The IEEE Foundation is another source of support

Recently, funding of some pre-university activities were by the Humanitarian Ad Hoc Committee– Mostly museum-related activities and EPICS

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Industry/Institutional Support (examples)

IBM and the New York Hall of Science– Tryengineering, TryNano, Accreditation.org

Aramco– Translation of TryEngineering into Arabic

Several Korean companies– Translation of TryNano into Korean

IBM– E-Scientia

Birla Science Center, Hyderabad– Science museum project

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Who pays?

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Entity Source Comments

EAB Member dues Nearly maxed out

IEEE-USA USA Member dues Maxed out

Technical Societies Society Income Mostly publications and conferences

Sections Section Income Rebates and conferences

NIC IEEE Income (Complicated algorithm) Not guaranteed

Humanitarian ad hoc IEEE Income (Complicated algorithm) Not guaranteed

Who pays?

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Entity Source Comments

Life Member Committee

Donations Not guaranteed

IEEE Foundation Donations Not guaranteed

Industry support Cash, equipment, in kind

Not guaranteed

UEF UEF Endowment Not guaranteed, tends to rotate between member societies

We hope the funding process would look like this…

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It is more likely to look like this…

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Comments about Funding (1) The success of IEEE’s Pre University Programs in the last 7 years is tied to the success of the volunteers who led the programs in internal fund raising

The fraction of NIC funding for Pre University activities (and educational activities) has grown significantly compared to previous periods of time

The Humanitarian Ad Hoc Committee gave all its discretionary budget in 2012 to Pre University activities

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Comments about Funding (2) The current funding model is volatile and unstable

While we are unlikely to see a collapse we may experience large swings

In general it is hard to operate for a long period of time as a “sink” for funds that others feel they have generated– The real state of affairs is immaterial – perception rules– The societal obligations of IEEE will be met only as long as

we elect to recognize them We will not lose our tax status even if we engage in no Pre-

University activities 04/19/2325

Comments about internal Funding

We do not know how much we spend on Pre- University education, for what and by whom

Within the realm of the Possible:– Let us find where does internal funding come

from, who spends it, and for what – Include the Foundation in the calculations– Calculate overhead on committee work– Use the results to seek efficiencies

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Comments about External Funding

Our most successful programs are those that benefit from support from Industry– Namely TryEngineering, TryNano and

Accreditation.org

TISP is powerful but it does not have industrial support– It means we have 6-10 volunteer-education events

every year, not the 50-60 we should have– The program cannot grow much due to budgetary

constraints– We have hard time tracking impact and measuring

success– Feeling good is important, but it is not enough

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Fund Raising for TISPWithin the realm of the Possible:– Substantial, long-term and stable funding of TISP

ought to be the single most important objective of our* philanthropic fund raising

– This should be tied to using TISP as communal outreach activity by participating corporations

The good news is that it can be done– TISP is tailored to the current sensibility of many

corporations

The bad news is that we have not done it alreadyFollowing the prescribed path to do this in IEEE is unlikely to reach desired outcome– We cannot expect to do the same thing and expect different

results 04/19/2328

Other TISP mattersReview the PowerPoint presentations and worksheets developed over time to accompany experiments– Add to the TryEngineering website– These often add interesting variants and provide good

background – They sometimes expose impossible tasks, unattainable

goals or simply poorly-designed experiments

Speak to leaders of different past TISP activities to get more input on experiment and write-up quality– And establish a feedback-gathering procedure from

activity leaders – to improve the instructions

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Can we benefit from work with other associations?

We have been successful when ETC associations took turn in leading a joint effort– UEF funding tends to rotate between member societies– Leadership of Engineers Week rotates between member

societies

More integrated cooperation was so far unsuccessful– TryEngineering received no monetary support from

other associations – Coordinating work with those who wanted to provide in

kind work proved hard04/19/2330

Will E4C show us the way for a better model of cooperation?

E4C has demonstrated that two major professional associations (IEEE and ASME) can cooperate in the public imperative arena– Even when it means that we need to spend a lot of money

together

E4C is yet to attract major participation for other associations – But there is some participation by ASCE and ASHRAE

Can we try to use the model (and the ongoing discussions) to develop a Pre University Cooperative?

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Actions on cooperation with other associations

Within the realm of the Possible:– Develop a blueprint for longer term inter-

society collaboration on pre-university education

– Test viability in discussions with potential collaborators

– Try to establish a group of at least three associations in a Pre-University Cooperative

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Volunteers are KeyThe success of IEEE’s Pre University activities is the direct result of the enthusiasm of IEEE volunteers

Our experience has been that if there is a need but there are no local volunteers to meet it, we will not be successful

We ran meaningful and useful workshops where the “need” may have been less acute but where we had enthusiastic volunteers– Hong Kong, Canada

We found that the volunteers we need are often not the ones that have already committed to other Section and Society activities

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Volunteers have their limitations

Volunteers will do a lot of work for IEEE but cannot be in many instances relied-upon for extended periods, for routine administration and maintenance of programs and for some time-critical activities– E.g., preparation of lesson plans, answering student

questions on TryEngineering

Securing and budgeting for staff support is essential

The role of volunteers is not to replace staff but to provide the know-how and donated labor that staff cannot provide

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Corrected title: volunteer-staff alliances are key

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CALL FOR ACTION

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Proposed Actions – TISPReview the PowerPoint presentations and worksheets developed over time to accompany experiments– Add to the TryEngineering website

These often add interesting variants and provide good background

They sometimes expose impossible tasks, unattainable goals or simply poorly-designed experiments

Speak to leaders of different past TISP activities to get more input on experiment and write-up quality– And establish a feedback-gathering procedure from

activity leaders – to improve the instructions 04/19/2337

Fund Raising for TISPSubstantial, long-term and stable funding of TISP ought to be the single most important objective of our philanthropic fund raising

This should be tied to using TISP as communal outreach activity by participating corporations

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Summary of Proposed Actions (1)

Information sharing– Take action to reach more complete sharing of

information– Try to make all pre-university activity information

available in one place

Internal Funding– Find where does internal funding come from, who

spends it, and for what – Include the Foundation in the calculations– Calculate overhead on committee work– Use the results to seek efficiencies

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Summary of Proposed Actions (2)

Pre-University CooperativeDevelop a blueprint for longer term inter-society collaboration on pre-university educationTest viability in discussions with potential collaboratorsTry to establish a group of at least three associations in a Pre-University Cooperative

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Final ThoughtsPre university activities will continue to be popular in IEEE because the volunteers believe in themWe have seen great expansion and growth of these activities, but the support infrastructure is laggingTo maintain momentum and ensure that we increase our effectiveness, we need to institutionalize

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Final ThoughtsPre university activities will continue to be popular in IEEE because the volunteers believe in themWe have seen great expansion and growth of these activities, but the support infrastructure is laggingTo maintain momentum and ensure that we increase our effectiveness, we need to institutionalizeThe first step is to gather the data.The second step is to define priorities based on data.The third step is to form alliances with other associations and with industry to develop effective, collaborative and long term programs.The time to do it is now.

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Questions?

43

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