Criterion 4: Contribution to Student Growth and Development

I have had the pleasure to be involved in the Undergraduate Research Conference (URC). For two years I have served as a judge in the Computer Science area. I have also provided statistical advise to undergraduate students as they prepare their papers for the URC conference

I currently have 24 advisees. For those students who are having difficulty I will send an email and ask them to come in and see me. To assist my advisees and other majors in the CIS department I have created an Excel spreadsheet that serves as checklist for those applying for admission to CSET and as majors in the Computer and Information Sciences Department and those who are nearing the completion of the major. These checklists are available online and also to other faculty and students in the department.

The Excel files have been programmed to provide the student with help in planing the for the major and also to help them determine if the credits and GPA necessary to graduate with the major. Some features of these checklists are as follows:

1. The cells in spreadsheet are protected so the student can only enter information into unprotected cells;
2. Students can see what courses they can take whose prerequisites have been satisfied;
3. After entering a term and grade received , the spreadsheet will calculate the total credits taken and GPA;
4. The spreadsheet will also calculate the cumulative GPA in CIS courses and the total credits in CIS;
5. The spreadsheet is formatted to let the students visually know if they have credits left to take also flags the CIS GPA if it falls below the minimum required for graduation.

The following is an example of one of the formulas in the spreadsheet it is checking for completion of prerequisites plus the grade earned.
    =IF(AND(OR($G$14="A",$G$14="B",$G$14="C"),OR($G$20="A",$G$20="B",$G$20="C") ),"Yes","No ")

I employ five undergraduate students as Lab instructors for the COMS100 Introduction to Computer Science general education course. The students that are currently teaching have been teaching for me for the last two years. I feel very privileged to have the opportunity to work with and provide an opportunity for these students. In addition to getting paid, a pittance for the work they do, they are gaining experience in teaching, managing a classroom, working with diverse populations which include ethnicity and technological skills, and also how to handle students who are not satisfied with their cores, etc. I treat them with respect and give them all the responsibility for their sections.

The students under my tutelage must be good students because a number of them are now employed by Information Services in various capacities. One of them, Mr. Frank Embree, is responsible for the Desire2Learn help desk at MSU,M for the MnSCU system. I feel fortunate I was able to have him work for me for three years.

I write letters of recommendations for jobs, scholarships graduate schools, etc.

As there is no one charged with providing statistical support for students doing either graduate or undergraduate research work at MSU,M, I am continually asked for help. Even though this is not my primary responsibility, I readily do what I can to help these students with their research. Although not as much as I would like.

These requests for help motivated me to revive the Statistical Inference packages class the CIS department used to offer yearly. I initiated a course number change which will give undergraduates an opportunity to learn the mechanics associated with statistical analysis.

As a visible and respected member of the MSU,M community, I often asked by other faculty and students to share my experiences and expertise. At least once a semester I am interviewed by students on topics ranging the gamut from my experience in Vietnam, the story behind how I became disabled, my experiences as a person with a disability, etc. In addition to interviews, Often I am invited to lecture students on related to research, disability and computers.

Former students stop by and ask my advice on computer related problems. It is not uncommon for me to walk down the hall and be stopped by a former student and asked how to eliminate some ‘nasty’ virus they got on their computer. It’s not uncommon for a student to bring in their laptop and ask my advice. Unfortunately sometimes I am bearer of bad news like the time I told a student his hard drive was the problem and nothing could be done except to replace it.

On one of the student evaluation forms, one of my weaknesses was “his standards are too high”. Yes I do have high standards but these standards are not anything that students today cannot achieve.

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