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ACADEMIC
EXCELLENCE
What’s Up Region IV??
My name is Whitney Gaskins and I am serving as your 2007-2008 Academic Excellence Chairperson. I am very excited to serve the mighty mother region providing programs that are better than ever.
This year we have exciting initiatives that perpetuate the NSBE mission. We are bringing back the Excellence! The tutoring initiative is an initiative to provide funding for a tutoring program at selected chapters for membership. In an effort to increase the number of members who gain professional licensure and showcase the academic knowledge of the technical engineering curricula of our collegiate membership, NSBE developed the Academic Technical Bowl. We also have the USTR competition which allows students to gain experience delivering technical presentations. This is not all! We have brought back the Regional Scholarships and have exciting new competitions and awards for all!
Please contact me if you have any questions. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. We hope to push for the Collegiate and NSBE Jr. Chapters to participate in all NSBE programs to help the everlasting burning desire to achieve success in this competitive society.
NSBE luv,
Whitney Gaskins
Empower yourself
through Achieving Academic Success…
Academic Excellence Programs
“Creative, engaging and interactive programs are the primary vehicle through which NSBE fulfills its mission of creating engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community. Within Academic Excellence, the National Academic Excellence Committee provides a variety of programs.
Undergraduate Students in Technical Research (USTR)
Main Focus: To encourage African Americans and other underrepresented collegiate members to participate in technical research projects that will lead to the pursuit of graduate degrees in technical fields.
Summary: Initiated through a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the USTR competition allows students to gain experience delivering technical presentations. Participants display their research via a poster presentation (3 x 4-ft. display board), using a variety of graphical wall displays (maps, charts, photographs, computer outputs, etc.) and working models and/or material samples. Participants will be judged on the technical content of their displays, oral presentation skills, and a 10-minute question and answer session with judges. All regional participants are welcome to submit the complete project report for the abstract being submitted to be included in the 2007 NSBE Technical Proceedings. Research activities at the undergraduate level including senior projects, company sponsored research programs and independent study courses all qualify for the competition. Research topics should reflect practical applications of engineering technology. All participants must be current, paid NSBE undergraduate members.
Students compete at FRC and the top three winners from each region compete at the National Convention. Participants are required to register for their respective fall regional conferences to be eligible to compete. All participants will be notified to confirm application status. All regional finalists are requested to submit the complete project report for the abstract being submitted to be included in the 2007 NSBE Technical Proceedings.
Poster Specs: Poster must not exceed the 3ft x 4ft size requirement.
Time Limit: 20 minutes (10 minute presentations followed by a 10 minute question & answer/scoring period)
Deadlines: Register and submit abstract on NOL by October 29, 2007
National Awards:
| |
National |
| First Place |
$1000 |
| Second Place |
$750 |
| Third Place |
$500 |
Academic Technical Bowl (ATB)
Main Focus: In an effort to increase the number of members who gain professional licensure and showcase the academic knowledge of the technical engineering curricula of our collegiate membership, NSBE developed the Academic Technical Bowl.
Summary: Academic Tech Bowl encourages healthy competition and showcases the breadth of technical knowledge in fundamental principles of engineering of the participants. The competition is done in a “Jeopardy!” style game show format, with questions that cover a wide variety of topics, from NSBE and African-American history to general engineering and science topics from the FE/EIT. Each team consists of four (4) members (including at most one graduate student) and one alternate, who represent their NSBE Chapter. Regional Technical Bowl competitions will be held at the Fall Regional Conferences, and the winning team from each region will compete for the national title at the National Convention. Teams must register for the Fall Regional Conference in order to compete in the regional competition.
Regional Awards: First Prize $500
Second Prize $300
Third Prize $200
Deadlines: Register and submit abstract on NOL by October 27, 2007
Achievers Plus
The Achiever’s Plus program is NSBE’s premier academic excellence program designed to promote academic achievement and help students improve their overall Grade Point Average (GPA). Its focus is to instill an intense philosophy focused on personal and academic development and forging identities of intellectual, academic and professional achievement in the minds of the membership. The fundamental objective of the program is to provide a “group study environment” at NSBE Chapters that promotes sharing of knowledge, disciplined study skills, and effective management of time to achieve each members highest academic potential.
Tutoring Initiative
Main Focus: An initiative to provide funding for a tutoring program at selected chapters for membership. The goal is to improve membership GPA and promote academic excellence.
Summary: The Achiever’s Plus Tutoring Initiative has been developed to provide monetary support of on-campus tutoring services to 5 NSBE chapters within the region. Tutors should assist with core freshman curriculum courses and are identified by the Chapter Academic Excellence Chair (collaboration with the NSBE chapter advisor and the director of the university’s Minority Engineering Program office is suggested). Tutors will be paid for their services through a $500 NSBE grant awarded to the chapter to be used over the course of the 2007-2008 academic year. Tutors are paid $10 per hour, allowing each chapter to implement a suggested 10 weeks of tutoring at 5 hours of tutoring per week. These numbers are based upon the following Board of Corporate Affiliates (BCA) allocations to each region:
$2500 per region
5 chapters @ $500 each for 10 weeks
10 weeks @ $50 per week
5 hours per week @ $10 per hour
Deviations to the suggested 5 hours per week (i.e. extra hours before final exams) are allowed, but the $10 per hour rate must be maintained and the overall costs per tutor must not exceed $500.
To qualify to receive any portion of the Achiever’s Plus Tutoring grant, a tutor must have achieved a minimum grade of “B” in the course in which they are tutoring. Individual transcripts of each tutor must be attached to the grant proposal indicating the tutors have each received the minimum grade requirement.
A chapter can apply for the Tutoring Initiative grant by signing up on NOL under the Scholarships & Competitions section
Deadlines: Register and submit abstract on NOL by November 2, 2007
Socratic Learning, Inc.
http://www.socraticlearning.com
Socratic Learning is specifically for NSBE PCI seniors and collegiate freshman/sophomore members, is a tutoring resource that is geared to focus on enhancing their academic performance through thought provoking Socratic Dialogs and real-time one-to-one tutoring. Socratic Dialogs engage students in an active discussion with an educator and requires them to work their mind and formulate and express their thoughts. The challenge of such discussions pushes your child's mental agility to higher levels, establishing a foundation for learning that they can build upon throughout their lives.
If you are a NSBE PCI high school senior or a collegiate freshman/sophomore, then you can apply by doing the following:
- Logon to NOL at https://nol.nsbe.org
- Go to the Scholarships & Competitions Tab
- Do a search for “Achiever’s Plus” in the Competition Quick Search box.
- Apply for the Socratic for Achiever’s Plus 2007
- Login and passwords will be sent to you via email
Graduate Student Periodicals
Through a partnership with ELSEVIER, NSBE will offer four free periodicals from Science Direct for graduate students. The periodicals available are as follows:
- Aerospace Science and Technology
- Computational Statistics & Data Analysis
- Materials & Design
- Renewable Energy
If you are a NSBE member who is a graduate student, then you can apply by doing the following:
- Logon to NOL at https://nol.nsbe.org
- Go to the Scholarships & Competitions Tab
- Do a search for “Graduate” in the Competition Quick Search box.
- Apply for the Graduate Student Periodical Access
- Logins and passwords will be sent to you via email.
Corporate Scholarship Program
The NSBE Corporate Scholarship Programs provides an avenue for our high-level corporate supporters to award qualifying NSBE members for their academic achievement based on pre-determined criteria. Corporations that participate work with our Programs Team to design selection criteria that will meet the companies specific needs with regards to major disciplines, classification, geographic area, target colleges and universities or a variety of other possible criteria. This program provides students with financial incentive to continue to strive for academic excellence while providing the corporation with direct exposure to our collegiate membership.
For more information on all of the available scholarships, please visit the NSBE Scholarships page at www.nsbe.org/programs/nsbescholarships.php or logon to NOL and search for scholarships under the “Scholarships and Competitions” Tab.
Academic Excellence Month
Academic Excellence month, designated as the month of November, is designed for chapters to engage membership and make them aware of the importance of academic excellence. It is also a time where the academic needs of members are especially tended to. This in turn helps educate our members and creates an academic focus that is needed early in the semester/quarter. |
