CPACE Meeting Minutes
Date: June 12, 2008 Time: 10:30 p.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Location: MichiganState University,East LansingMI
Participants listed by group:
- MichiganStateUniversity (MSU): Mark Urban-Lurain, Jon Sticklen, Daina Briedis, Neeraj Buch, Claudia Vergara.
- Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW): Cindee Dresen, Kysha Frazier, Lisa Katz, Tammy Coxen.
1) Review Minutes May 22, 2008
Facilitate/promote contact with K. Cooley (director of the department
of labor and economic growth). Cindee will take care of this.
2) Pilot interview update
Mark: The most important thing that we got out of this is that the
interview protocol needs to change a lot. We need to have a protocol
that is like a flow chart (Mark showed the flow chart that we designed).
The interview needs to extract two or three big ideas/themes that set
the company apart. From those themes we can work through the protocol
derive different questions like challenges, computational tools to meet
the challenges.
Jon: It is a very good question to ask whether the tool that they are using is the best tool.
Daina: Are the people that do the interviews always the same people?
Mark: Yes there is a group of people.
Daina: Is it better to have an eng in the interviews or not?
Jon: Some things might not be understood but by and eng.
Mark: The interviews are recorded.
Cindee: Remember that we can follow up on the interviews if we need
to. I am more concerned that if we have more people (during the
interview) that will interfere with the interview. This is our first
pilot and we need to decide what to change or not in our protocol.
Jon: The process question is that the raw tape should be analyzed by the EGR faculty.
Mark: It is a good idea to review the interviews as soon as possible. My main concern is that the interview flows.
Jon: We need to assign who to review the interviews in a timely manner.
NOTE: There was a discussion and clarification about the demographics
portion of the interview. That part is sent ahead of time so that they
can complete it. The interview questions are also send ahead of time.
During the interview we ask for clarifications on the demographics if
needed.
Mark: Since we have three shots at Cascade with different people at
different levels, we want to explore the more flexible protocol (flow
chart) and see how that goes and use it to refine and or iterate.
Note: There was a discussion about Cascade and their products and recruitment and retention strategies.
Mark: The idea of this new protocol is to give the interviewer some
flexibility and include in each of the topics a set of questions (from
the original linear protocol).
Lisa: Did the interview take one hour?
Kysha: It took longer that's other thing we need to fix it can not be that long.
Neeraj: The protocol in general has to work for other types of
companies different from Cascade for example a government agency, so we
need to pilot this with other types of companies. I will ask J. Polasek
for a pilot interview.
Daina: With Cascade I heard that they draw people from Ferris state
and it might be interesting to ask what institutions do they go for
their quote engs, because for example Ferris State don't have engs they
have technology so that says something about the kind of person they are
recruiting, we need to find out who their constituencies are.
Mark: The initial survey portion of this has the different categories (four, two year engs degrees).
Daina: Technology is a four year degree.
Mark: So do we need to re-structure this to include a four year
technology. We used the O*Net classification which is a two or four year
classification.
Daina: But if somebody does not know the difference they may not be
able to distinguish between a BSc in eng and a BSc in technology which
to us is a difference.
Tammy: If we look at the survey we define an eng as someone who holds
a four year degree in eng. We define an eng technician as some one who
has an associate or two year degree in eng technology.
Mark: So the question is do we need to have a third category of a four year eng technology degree?
Tammy: We need to pilot this and see what we get; we knew there would
be challenges about the way people use the term eng that are different
from academia.
Mark: We star hearing all of these job titles and I had no clue what
the degrees of these titles were. That is probably going to be different
in every company.
Neeraj: For civil eng if you are not licensed you can not designed so there is a clear demarcation for civil engs.
Jon: Yes, but this is around functionality isn't the problem that these companies have their own categorization for jobs.
Mark: The other thing that is true is the cross functionality as we
saw at Cascade. We are trying to see what the mix of disciplines is and
be able to translate this to the curriculum (cvl, electric, chem. Etc)
and how does computation fits in.
Jon: One dimension is what function they play which is connected to
their function and the code name might be different from company to
company; the other dimension is what degree backs these people so that
we can fold it back to the curriculum
Cindee: We have not had the opportunity to test the demographic piece
yet because not all of them have it. We need to test it and then see
how to change it if we need to.
Mark: I agree so we need to wait and see how this piece plays out. Now we are focusing on the interview piece.
Neeraj: Are we going back to them with our findings and perhaps the
ways in which the project addresses the needs of the companies.
Mark: At Cascade for example they were taking about big picture
things and very important seemed to be office people don't know how to
handle office.
Neeraj, the feedback is to come back and tell them our findings, the
big things that we concluded and the ideas that we came up to address
them.
Tammy, Kysha and Claudia will meet and incorporate the two protocols
for the next pilot interview. 3) NSF Annual Report. Claudia will
complete
4) CPACE employer engagement AB activities. Sent to the AB
5) AB taking points. Sent to the AB
6) CPACE Employer recruitment brochure
Mark: Linda was trying to get updated images based on the comments
that people send. The pictures will be changed, one of the titles will
be picked, and we will put only Tom's Wolf contact here because he is
the PI. One of the questions is whether Tammy's name as a contact along
with Tom's is confusing?
Jon: The flow is that Jamie (Tom's secretary) gets the call and she directs to Tammy.
Summary
Pilot interview update
- The interview protocol needs to change. We need to have a
protocol that is like a flow chart. The idea of this new protocol is to
give the interviewer some flexibility and include in each of the topics a
set of questions (from the original linear protocol). The interview
needs to extract two or three big ideas/themes that set the company
apart. From those themes we can work through the protocol and derive
different questions like challenges, computational tools to meet the
challenges.
- The raw tape should be analyzed by the EGR faculty. It is a good idea to review the interviews as soon as possible.
- The protocol has to work for other types of companies
different from Cascade for example a government agency. We need to pilot
the protocol in other companies like MDOT
- Regarding the issue of job title vs eng discipline, there is
the question about the need to have a third category of a four year eng
technology degree in the demographics survey. We need to pilot more
interviews and revise the demographic portion accordingly.
- More importantly we need to be able to relate it back to
curriculum. One dimension is functionality which is connected to their
function and the job title might be different from company to company;
the other dimension is what degree backs these people so that we can
fold it back to the curriculum.
- We are giving the companies feedback on our findings, the
big things that we concluded and the ideas that we came up to address
them.
Action Items
CSW
Cindee: Facilitate/promote contact with K. Cooley (director of the department of labor and economic growth).
Lisa: Bring up with the WIRE people the issue about minority representation.
Kysha, Tammy: Prepare new protocol for interview
MSU
Claudia: Prepare new protocol for interview. NSF progress report.