By Nelson Nunez-Rodriguez, Natural Sciences
The visit of the external evaluator for the Engineering Program-Academic Program Review recognized program strengths and left us with a better capacity to work on areas needing development. The evaluator met faculty, students, staff and administrators during this one-day visit. He highlighted accomplishments that we take for granted and suggested alternative ways to use numerical information for making informed decisions. Simultaneously, discussions along the day clarified what improvements revolve around faculty commitment and which ones depend on administration’s capacity to allocate adequate resources to the program. In this regard, the external evaluator pointed out the need to have a long-term comprehensive vision as the program growth can surpass our current competence to adequately serve the students. He left us with a key homework: to prepare a concise narrative highlighting program strengths. It will help faculty and administrators to better understand the program and explain its significance to external actors such as community leaders, potential private donors and external funding agencies. Overall, it was an invigorating day as he recognized our faculty hard work and made us to feel proud of our student progress in STEM disciplines.
The Engineering Program is a Joint Dual Admission Engineering Degree Associate in Science/Bachelor in Engineering (A.S/B.Es) Program based on a signed agreement between Hostos Community College of CUNY and Grove School of Engineering of the City College of New York. Currently, our institution offers Associate in Science degree in Electrical, Civil, Mechanical, Chemical, and Environmental Engineering. The program is hosted in the Mathematics and Natural Sciences Departments. Prof. Yoel Rodriguez serves as the college wide program coordinator, Prof. Nieves Angulo serves as the program coordinators for the Mathematics department, and Ms. Karla Contreras serves as the Dual Degree Advising Coordinator. Prof. William Baker is the Mathematics Department chairperson and Prof. Francisco Fernandez is the Natural Sciences chairperson. READ MORE.