January 24, 2003

BOISE STATE RECEIVES $1 MILLION GRANT FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION

With a grant totaling more than $1 million, underprepared engineering students at Boise State University will now have a better chance to reach their academic goals, the school announced today.

Earlier this week, Boise State was named one of nine public colleges and universities in nine western states to receive a grant through the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s "Engineering Schools of the West Initiative." The grants are designed to provide funding for programs that seek to improve the quality of undergraduate education in engineering and increase the number of engineering graduates.

Boise State was awarded $1,050,000 over four years for a project titled "Overcoming Roadblocks to Introductory Engineering Courses." The nine grants, ranging from $750,000 to $1.1 million, will support programs to increase retention and recruitment efforts and improve student learning through better undergraduate teaching.

The Boise State grant will help fund a new integrated engineering curriculum that provides a network of student support based on supplemental instruction, hands-on activities and projects, an early focus on the development of professional engineering and communication skills. The program also includes an enhanced set of student and faculty exchanges with Monterrey Tech in Guadalajara, Mexico and a substantial effort in placing students into research laboratories or engineering internships very early in their educational career.

According to John Gardner, chair of the Boise State department of mechanical engineering and one of the authors of the grant proposal, the university expects the infusion of funding to significantly increase the enrollment, retention and graduation of many of its engineering students.

"Participation in the Engineering Schools of the West Initiative is an opportunity that will benefit Boise State’s engineering program in profound ways," Gardner said. "Primarily, it will help us to remain focused on our core mission of providing an education that is accessible to many individuals who would otherwise be denied access to an engineering program because of lack of preparation or the passage of time after high school. I have no doubt that this grant will have positive effects that will reverberate long after the life of the grant itself."

"This generous grant from the Hewlett Foundation provides a wonderful opportunity and brings much-deserved recognition to our College of Engineering," said Boise State President Charles Ruch. "It also demonstrates how far our engineering college has come since it started in 1996. It will make for even greater opportunities for undergraduate engineering education for years to come. We are most grateful."

In addition to Boise State, the other grant recipients are Colorado School of Mines, Montana State University, New Mexico State University, Northern Arizona University, Oregon State University, University of Nevada, University of Utah and University of Wyoming.

According to the Hewlett Foundation, the institutions were selected for their commitment to rigorous assessment and ability to sustain long-term outcomes.

Schools were chosen in part because their programs had the potential of providing a significant "multiplier effect" leading to a change in the institution that would also be instructive to other colleges and universities, said Initiative director Richard Reis.

"We really believe that the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts," Reis said. "By bringing representatives from the nine schools together on a regular basis, the Foundation expects to have a much wider impact on engineering education than would be possible with just stand-alone programs."

The awards are being made in honor of William Hewlett, co-founder of the Hewlett Packard company. Based in Menlo Park, Calif., the Hewlett Foundation, incorporated as a private foundation in California in 1966, was established by the late Palo Alto industrialist, his wife, Flora Lamson Hewlett, and their eldest son, Walter B. Hewlett. The Foundation's broad purpose is to promote the well-being of mankind by supporting selected activities of a charitable nature, as well as organizations or institutions engaged in such activities. Further information can be found at http://www.hewlett.org/.

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Richard Reis

Hewlett Foundation

(650) 234-4500, ext 5624

John Gardner

Mechanical engineering

426-5702

Bob Evancho

University Relations

426-1643

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