Partners for Innovation in Information Technology
PI: Thomas J. Cheatham
Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU)
College of Basic and Applied Sciences
Co PIs: Cen Li, Zhijiang Dong, Kevin Harris, Jian Fu
NSF Award #0917840
3 Year Award
Start Date: 15 July 2009
Key Attributes of our
Innovation Ecosystem:
Brief Project Overview:
Questioning & Curiosity:
Partners for Innovation in Information Technology (PIIT) is a
three-year project with the goal of improving enrollment and
retention rates in Computer Science and Information
Technology (CS/IT). PIIT has two foci:
1. Can we engage high school students in computing activities
and interest them in careers in computing?
2. Will engaging computing professionals in computing
discussions with high school students increase the student’s
interest in careers in computing?
1. Recruiting additional talented students into CS/IT majors
2. Retaining (and graduating) additional students in CS/IT
majors
Program Activities:
1. Recruitment
• Conducting CS/IT Professional Seminars for
participating High Schools
• Conducting CS/IT Summer Computer Camps - all
camps are 1 week (5 day, 40 hour):
3. Can teams of college students solve a meaningful real-world
computing problem in a summer project?
PIIT Team: (l-r, row 1) Jian Fu (Co-PI
Alabama A&M), Cen Li (Co-PI MTSU),
Rose Johnson (Grants Coordinator, MTSU),
Zhijiang Dong (Co-PI, MTSU),
(l-r, row 2), Kevin Harris (Co-PI, Nashville
State Community College, David Welch
(Div Coord, NSCC), Ted Washington
(Assoc VP, NSCC), Tom Cheatham
(PI and Dean, MTSU)
◦ Alice Camp
◦ Robotics Camp
◦ Multi-Media Programming Camp
2. Retention
• Engaging computer science majors in real-world
problems as part of class assignments incorporated
into courses.
• Conducting summer software team projects
mentored by a faculty member or graduate student to
solve a real-world problem for a participating
company.
Risk Taking:
1. Students solving a real-world problem is fraught with risks—
What do you do if it is not finished? How do you manage the
interactions of students with the public?
2. Can we successfully leverage a NSF-CPATH project at
MTSU that is using real-world problems in computing courses?
3. Can a regional university, an HBCU, a community college,
two technology organization, and a group of school districts
form an effective team?
Openness:
Top Contributions:
1. Introducing high school students to careers in
computer science/information technology.
2. Engaging computer science majors in realworld problems as part of class assignments
incorporated into courses.
3. Conducting summer software team projects
mentored by a faculty member or graduate
student to solve a real-world problem for a
participating company.
1. Bi-weekly conference calls with all institutions of higher
education (IHE) across two states.
2. Great discussions with companies about real-world problems
for summer teams—what is too hard, too easy, too complex.
3. Allowing each IHE to add their own twist to the components
of the project.
Collaboration Across Fields:
1. The focus of “PIIT: Partners for Innovation in Information
Technology” is on computing, but the project engages
engineers, scientists, business managers, mathematicians, and
computing professionals.
2. We have a great industry/higher education/high school
partnership to recruit and retain students in computing majors.
Partners:
3. We have a great IHE partnership across three very different
institutions—a regional comprehensive, an HBCU, and a
community college.
Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) is a large (25,000
students), comprehensive, Ph.D. granting institution founded
in 1911.
Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (AAMU) is a
land-grant university and a chartered Historically Black
College/University (HBCU).
Nashville State Community College (NSCC) is a public, twoyear comprehensive community college with 7,000 students
founded in 1970 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Nashville Technology Council, an affiliate of the Nashville
Area Chamber of Commerce, is an exclusive, C6 nonprofit
organization devoted to helping the Middle Tennessee
technology community succeed.
Placing Partners in “New
Environments” & “Playgrounds”:
Top Challenges:
1. Working with local high school to conduct
seminars and recruit summer camp participants.
2. Finding real-world projects with the appropriate
conditions suitable to use as classroom
exercises.
3. Identifying companies with real-word problems
suitable for a “summer team project”
environment.
Mind2Marketplace (M2M) is an organization dedicated to
helping bring the brightest and best ideas in middle
Tennessee technology to reality, with job creation the ultimate
goal. M2M’s service area stretches from Huntsville, AL to Oak
Ridge, TN.
1. Industry professionals are making presentations about computing
careers and activities in area high schools.
2. Industry partners will be working with undergraduates from IHE
partners to solve real-world problems in their companies.
3. Three very different IHEs across two states are partnering to
address a computing workforce issue.
Leading/Inspiring for Surprising
or Unexpected Results
1. Coordinating robotic kit purchases across three institutions is
surprisingly difficult.
2. Physical one-site team meetings are very difficult, but
conference calls help greatly.
3. IRB approval can be a challenge across three IHEs.
PFI
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National Science Foundation Partnerships For Innovation
Grantee’s Meeting April 25-27, 2010
Arlington, VA
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