Campus News

Summit Wants More Students in Engineering

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 21, 2009) Leaders in Kentucky education, industry, business and government will meet Tuesday, Oct. 27, at the Marriott Griffin Gate in Lexington for a day-long conference to strategize ways to increase the number and diversity of students pursuing engineering and engineering technology careers.

Project Lead the Way Kentucky (PLTWKY) is hosting the summit, which aims at helping develop partnerships of K-12 schools, colleges and industry to meet future demand for engineers. PLTW is a K-12 curriculum targeting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) via a pre-engineering path and a biomedical engineering path. Currently in Kentucky there are approximately 90 middle and high schools offering the PLTW curriculum.

University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd Jr. and Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday will kick off the conference at 9 a.m, in addition to Robert King, president of the Council on Postsecondary Education. The keynote speaker is Dennis Bega from the U.S. Department of Education. Other morning speakers include Dianne Leveridge, PLTW director at the UK College of Engineering; Teri Schulz, PLTW regional director; and Henry Lacy, PLTW state leader within the Kentucky Department of Education.

The afternoon session will map out ways to launch local PLTW initiatives and partnerships; identifying students for mentoring programs; ways to encourage girls and minorities to consider STEM careers; and other topics.

The conference is being sponsored by E.ON U.S.

 

Registration and more information is available online at www.pltwky.org/.