The Genesis Of A Multi Institutional Collaborative Educational Initiative Proposal

Abstract NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session No: 2793 THE GENESIS OF A MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL COLLABORATIVE EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVE PROPOSAL Carol Davis Turtle Mountain Community College G. Padmanabhan, Robert Pieri, Wei Lin, Floyd Patterson, Sharon Cobb North Dakota State University Abstract A proposal for a collaborative educational initiative between the five tribal colleges in North Dakota and the North Dakota State University was funded ($1.27M) recently by the Office of Naval Research. The initiative is aimed at increasing the Native American participation in Math, Science and Engineering careers. Activities for the five year proposal period focus on attracting the Native American high school students to the tribal colleges, retaining them through the college, facilitating their smooth transfer to the university, and motivating them for higher studies. Because of the vast distances involved between each of the five tribal colleges and the university, and the sparsely populated nature of the region, distance education technology will necessarily play a key role. For example, some of the activities will be over a two-way video network (Interactive Video Network) connecting all of these colleges and the university. The development of the proposal involved representatives and resource persons from each of the tribal colleges and the university. Because of the large number of people involved, busy schedules and large distances, advanced communication avenues were utilized such as video network conferencing and group decision-making technology to enhance the face-to-face meetings. The discussions clearly pointed to the need for the principal members to fully appreciate the cultural backgrounds of all the participants. Diverse cultural approaches to the education in the Tribal Colleges were recognized. A recently instituted Group Decision Center at North Dakota State University provided the ideal setting for such decision making processes. The use of the electronic discussion software at the Group Decision Center levels the playing field for the discussion and allows for easy prioritizing of ideas. All discussion is simultaneous and anonymous so the discussion can move quickly and more equitably than sometimes possible in verbal discussions. This system allowed a very detailed discussion of the project to address the cultural issues and needs of the Tribal Colleges and to determine where and how to invest the project resources. This paper will describe the evolution of the proposal from its conception to submission. The description will include five sections: introduction, prior collaboration, ONR project collaboration, Group Decision Center’s role, and the ONR proposal concept with Student Pathways, Project Management and Activity Flow Charts as submitted in the proposal.