Skip to main content

News

NSBE Awards $10,000 to PROMES Program
By
Toby Weber
Kathy Zerda
Zerda

The National Society of Black Engineers has named the Cullen College’s Program for the Mastery of Engineering Studies (PROMES) a winner of a 2012 ExxonMobil – NSBE Engineering Impact Award.

The award was given in recognition of the program’s success in recruiting and retaining students from underrepresented minority groups and includes a $10,000 grant in support of these efforts.

According to Program Director Kathy Zerda, while all students are encouraged to join PROMES, “the program really targets first-generation college students and minority students…. PROMES is open to all engineering students, but I really think the people we help the most are those who don’t have family role models who went to college.”

PROMES conducts recruitment outreach targeting minority students and offers seminars, collaborative learning workshops and peer mentoring programs for those who enroll in the college. In recent semesters, the PROMES freshmen cohort has had a higher average grade point average than the non-PROMES freshmen in the college. “We believe this will lead to higher retention and persistence to graduation overall,” said Zerda.

One of PROMES’ most successful initiatives is a program of peer-led engineering workshops focusing on a particularly challenging set of classes taken during the sophomore year. While workshops are open to all students in the college, they are administered through PROMES. Depending on the class, students who participate in the semester-long workshop have a pass rate between seven percentage points and 30 percentage points higher than those who do not participate.

The new funding will be used to support such efforts and will also be put toward student scholarships, said Zerda.

Share This Story: