PROMES (Program for Mastery in Engineering Studies) is a longstanding effort by the Cullen College of Engineering to enhance engineering students’ performance and provide them with recruitment and academic advising, workshops, scholarships and professional and personal development opportunities. The program is open to everyone with no limitations; any student is welcome to join, sign up for workshops and attend events.
Appointed to the position earlier this year, PROMES Director Matthew Zelisko is no stranger to the University of Houston and is passionate and committed to making the program the best it can be for current and future Cullen students.
Zelisko completed his undergraduate education in Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University before completing his PhD in Mechanical Engineering with the Cullen College of Engineering in 2016. In his last year of graduate school at UH, he was offered the opportunity to teach a first-year engineering course.
“I really enjoyed it, so I decided that when I was done with graduate school, I wanted to stay in academia. I enjoyed teaching more than research — more than anything — which is why I have the position I have now,” he said.
After teaching full-time for almost the last ten years, including the last five at the University of St. Thomas, Zelisko’s focus and motivation are centered squarely on student success.
“At UST, I had a colleague working on student success and retention who actually came from UH. One of the things he always talked about that he really enjoyed during his time at UH was PROMES. He spoke so highly of it that it really motivated me to come in and say, hey, I want to help improve this program, and I’m excited now to have the opportunity. Hearing someone speak so highly of PROMES really motivated me to take this position when it was offered and to start thinking about how we can improve it and get to a point where it’s positively impacting as many students as possible,” said Zelisko.
He hit the ground running.
“It’s been pretty busy so far,” he said. “The first thing I did was schedule meetings with all of the departments we offer workshops for to really ensure that what we’re offering is still what they want, and that we’re still best meeting the needs of their students.”
The PROMES mission is to provide a positive learning environment that supports the needs of undergraduate students in engineering programs at the University of Houston, so they’ve also worked together on scheduling to avoid calendar conflicts and ensure that workshops offered by PROMES are available to as many students as possible.
“Now that things are slowing down a bit, I can focus more on some of the other work that PROMES does, like corporate engagement and outreach opportunities,” Zelisko said.
These corporate donations and engagements are crucial contributors to PROMES funding.
Program staff are also looking to rebuild some of the word-of-mouth momentum that PROMES lost to COVID-19 closures years ago.
“If you lose those couple of years, you lose the word of mouth for those cohorts and they’re not able to pass that information on,” said Zelisko.
“It’s really about community building, especially among the students: a place where they can feel comfortable, with the workshops starting the process by getting like-minded students with the same core goals and same majors working together to solve problems,” he added. “Hopefully they take these study groups forward and start participating in some of the other things PROMES offers, like community service projects with our corporate engagements. Building a community among the students here helps us improve both student retention and student success.”
Recent changes to workshop grading conventions also mean that students will now receive a letter grade for workshop completion, which may help offer a small GPA boost for some participating students in a way that the previous Pass/Fail arrangement could not.
More information on PROMES workshops can be found at this link.
Other short-term plans for the future of PROMES include increasing workshop offerings and expanding them out across disciplines — workshops are currently concentrated in civil, mechanical, chemical, and electrical engineering courses with first time offerings in mechanical and electrical engineering technology this coming fall — and continuing to boost enrollment in those that are already offered.
Longer term, Zelisko sees a focus on keeping up with corporate engagement and continuing to build strong business relationships in the area, and he hopes to get back into community outreach with local K-12 students — as PROMES has done in the past — to promote STEM engagement and recruitment in area schools. He also sees potential in developing a PROMES mentorship program and thinks it’s “something students could really benefit from.”
“PROMES has always been about creating opportunities and building a sense of belonging for every engineering student,” said Zelisko. “My goal is to continue strengthening that foundation so that every student who walks through our doors knows they have the support and resources to succeed, not just here at UH, but anywhere they go.”