Governor Rick Perry recently announced that more than $4.5 million will be granted to the science and technology departments of 23 public and private Texas universities. SMU is scheduled to receive the largest portion of the grant and is the only private school among the group to receive federal funding.
“SMU has reestablished its role as a statewide leader in engineering education,” said Geoffrey Orsak, SMU associate professor of electrical engineering. The grant marks the first collaboration of its kind between government, industry and higher education.
“The digital revolution rests on the shoulders of our young students coming out of Texas schools,” Perry said.
With its portion of the grant, SMU will launch “The Texas Engineering Education Pipeline.” The program is designed to increase the number of electrical engineering and computer science graduates in Texas. Its primary focus will be to incorporate SMU’s award-winning Infinity Project curriculum into the freshman curriculum at more than 40 high schools in 10 different states.
“The program is designed to help students understand the real world relevance of engineering, science and math and to expose them to high-tech career opportunities,” SMU public affairs assistant Ellen Mayou said.
The Infinity Project began in 1998 when Torrence Robinson, director of Texas Instruments’s University Program, wanted to discover a new way to increase the number of skilled engineers. The project is the first in the country to help school districts incorporate state-of-the-art engineering and advanced technology into standard high school curricula.
“We are losing students at the high school level because they want instant gratification curricula, which is not readily apparent in some math and science courses,” Robinson said.
Robinson approached Orsak who then assembled a nationwide advisory board for the project. It created curriculum focusing on math and science fundamentals at the university level. The purpose is to increase interest in engineering and to have an impact on the quantity, quality and diversity of electrical engineering and computer science graduates.
The Infinity Project consists of six phases. The first focuses on increasing the freshman year retention rate at universities. An overall increase of the freshman retention rate has grown from 45 percent to 90 percent since incorporating the Infinity-Project.
“By creating this institute, SMU will be a major player in making that [increasing engineering students at universities] happen,” Orsak said.
