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Engineering Professor Honored for Work with Minority Students
By
Toby Weber

Gerhard Paskusz, professor emeritus at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering and founder of its groundbreaking PROMES Program, is being honored this week for his efforts to advance the prospects of minorities in engineering.

Paskusz is being recognized with the Dupont Minorities in Engineering Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. The award will be presented later this week during the group’s annual conference, which is being held in Honolulu, Hawaii.

According to the ASEE website, the award is designed to honor an engineering educator who shows “leadership in the conception, organization and operation of precollege and college activities designed to increase participation of underrepresented students in engineering and engineering technology.” These efforts should yield noticeable increases in the enrollment and graduation rates of minority students, the website adds.

Specifically, Paskusz is being recognized for his work with the college’s PROMES program (Program for Mastery in Engineering Studies), which he founded in 1974. The program, which was initially reserved for minority students but is now open to all undergraduates, offers academic workshops where students can learn about study and time-management skills, and serves as a social networking platform where students can seek support from their peers and form study groups.

The methods used by the program to increase the number and success of minorities in the college have proven successful over the past 30-plus years.

“We have the same percentage of students as the college of engineering on the Dean’s list. Our graduation rates are comparable and our four-year retention rate is usually better than that of the college as a whole,” Paskusz said in an interview last year.

Paskusz’s nomination was submitted by Dr. Kathy Zerda, who took over the program upon Paskusz’s retirement in 2005, and supported by Dean Raymond Flumerfelt.

“Dr. Paskusz has devoted his entire career to promoting the participation of under-represented minorities in engineering studies,” Zerda wrote in her nomination of Paskusz. “He has touched thousands of lives from middle school through college with his passion for engineering education and for helping students reach their potential in STEM fields.”

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