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INSPIRED(INcreasing Student Participation In REsearch Development Program ) - Online Journal - Wiki

The INcreasing Student Participation In REsearch Development Program is designed to increase the participation of women and minorities in computing. The program targets female and minority computer science (CS) undergraduate students, but also includes some outreach components for middle and high school students. The goal is to demonstrate that engaging underrepresented students in the INSPIRE program can 1)retain more of these students; 2)help transition them into advanced study in computer science or computing careers; and 3)attract more females and minorities to the field

INSPIRED Team,

I want to remind all of you that it is your responsibility as an INSPIRED team member to perform your duties in a professional and reliable manner. This includes completing your weekly journals, report of hours worked, special events reports, semester summaries and other reports in a timely fashion. Some of you have been doing this, but others have not. Dr. Liu and I have each created pages on the wiki to track the status of these reports. If you do not consistently complete these reports in a timely fashion your participation in INSPIRED can be terminated.

It is also your responsibility to be a good team member, which includes participating fully, reliably completing your assigned tasks, keeping established lab hours, and helping other team members as needed. Failure to do this can result in termination of your participation in INSPIRED. Dr. Liu and I will be monitoring your performance, and we will also seek anonymous input from your teammates that is designed to improve your performance in the team.

The success of this program depends on each of you individually and all of you as a team. The best thing you can do to promote continuance of this program is to give it your best effort and be a good team member.

If you have any questions please contact your supervisor.

Thank you,

PD

Announcements

  • Sept. 7, 8, and 15: Linux Workshops, 5PM-6:30Pm in 208 Maes
  • The fall 2009 and spring 2010 schedule for the Professional Development Workshops offered by Lamar Career and Testing Center is attached below. Detailed info. will be available soon at http://dept.lamar.edu/careerandtestingcenter/workshops.htm.

All INSPIRED students are encouraged to attend the workshops and write a summary after you attend each workshop. You can count the hours as your INSPIRED working hours.

Dazed and Confused September 22, 2009

Extreme Makeover: Resume Edition October 14, 2009

Internships: Its not too late November 17, 2009

What LU can do for you!! February 3, 2010

Speed Interviewing February 24, 2010

Dress for Success March 17, 2010

Backpack to Briefcase April 20, 2010

  • 2009 - West Brook Career Day - March 20th

Coordinator: Iris Garcia West Brook High School has invited the INSPIRED Team again this year to participate their annual Career Day, to be held on Friday, March 20, 2009. Career Day gives the students at West Brook the opportunity to hear from professionals in careers that they are interested in pursuing in the future.

  • 2009 INSPIRED High School Robotics Academy - June 8 - 12 - Coordinator: Kelli Hall

The robotics academy for high school students, sponsored by INSPIRED, is an opportunity for those who are interested in computer science and/or robotics to learn how to program an Intellibrain robot, created by Ridgesoft. The students will spend five days learning how to program their robots to the point of making it run through a maze by itself, a race to the finish line. Also at the academy, the students will learn how to build a website using HTML and Frontpage/Expressions. The students will also learn to use the MIT program, Scratch, an animation software that allows for students to have fun learning how to animate. The INSPIRED student team put together all the content and then taught every session of the camp. The students, high school and INSPIRED alike, enjoyed the academy equally and we hope to do it again this year. -Kelli Hall

  • 2009 - Middle School Academies Mar 28th,Jun 6th, Jun 20th

Inspired will be hosting 3 Middle School Robotics Academies this year.The academies will be held on Lamar University's campus. There will be the main Robotics session, and 2 additional sessions: Scratch and Website building.

  • 02/23/2009 Sally Ride Event Agenda.
  • 02/18/2009 Spring 2009 Academic Enhancement Workshops, read more.
  • 02/18/2009 Upcoming Workshops and Information Sessions for Inspired Students, read more.
  • 2009 Nominations for the Association for Women in Computing (AWC) - 2009 and Applications for the Kathi Bowles memorial scholarship are approaching, read more.
  • 2009 Southwest Airlines is now recruiting for it's internships, read more.
  • 2009 INSPIRED High School Robotics Academy - June 8 - 12 - Coordinator: Kelli Hall

The robotics academy for high school students, sponsored by INSPIRED, is an opportunity for those who are interested in computer science and/or robotics to learn how to program an Intellibrain robot, created by Ridgesoft. The students will spend five days learning how to program their robots to the point of making it run through a maze by itself, a race to the finish line. Also at the academy, the students will learn how to build a website using HTML and Frontpage/Expressions. The students will also learn to use the MIT program, Scratch, an animation software that allows for students to have fun learning how to animate. The INSPIRED student team put together all the content and then taught every session of the camp. The students, high school and INSPIRED alike, enjoyed the academy equally and we hope to do it again this year. -Kelli Hall

  • 2009 - Middle School Academies – Mar 28th, Jun 6th, Jun 20th*

Inspired will be hosting 3 Middle School Robotics Academies this year.The academies will be held on Lamar University's campus. There will be the main Robotics session, and 2 additional sessions: Scratch and Website building.

  • 2009 - Sally Ride Festival - Feb 28th*

The Sally Ride Festival will be hosted at Lamar University in the McDonald Gym this year. Elementary and Middle school girls will gather to attend this yearly festival. They will participate in a street fair and discovery workshops about science, mathematics, and engineering. Astronaut Sally Ride will attend to give an inspiring keynote speech.Valerie Juarez will be the coordinator for the street festival. We will be hosting a booth with information about Inspired, Lamar University, and Computer Science. Crystal Wettingfeld will be the coordinator for the workshop. We will host two 45 minute sessions with Lego's NXT Robots.The girls will work on fun exercises programming the robots.

  • Traing session for Scratch and Web labs at 1:00pm on May 12, 2008 in INSPIRED lab

We will have a training session for Scratch and Web labs at 1:00pm on May 12, 2008 in INSPIRED lab. All INSPIRED students who are going to participate in Summer Academy 2008 are required to attend the training session. Thank you.

  • Sun Niagara and OpenSPARC Workshop April 9, 2008 • 3:00 PM • 106 Maes
  • CS Graduate Study Seminar: Wednesday, February 27 3:00 PM Maes Room 111 Dr. Oney Fitzpatrick, Interim Dean of Graduate Studies, will talk about

the benefits of going to graduate school and the application process. All CS students are welcome.

  • 2-14-2008 Alpha Sim Technology is looking for a Net Programmer. To apply, interested applicants would need to logon to their accounts on the Career and Testing Center website www.lamar.edu/careercenter and reference Job # 3328.
  • 2-14-2008 INVISTA is looking for an Application Developer/IT for a Co-op position. To apply, interested applicants would need to logon to their accounts on the Career and Testing Center website www.lamar.edu/careercenter and reference Job # 4069.
  • 2-10-2008 Please read the reminder sent by Iris. The reminder is also posted on 2-8-2008 meeting minutes page.
  • 2-7-2008 The Texas Job Fair will be held on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at the

University of St. Thomas Jarabeck Center in Houston. There will be employers from many different fields, including Computer Science. Rafael talked to a representative at the Lamar Career Center and she told me that there would be a bus leaving Lamar at 8 am to the job fair. The bus will return at 2 pm that same day. In order to reserve a seat on the bus , one must go to the Career Center and submit a refundable deposit of five dollars. There are only about 10 seats left, so make this reservation as soon as possible. For more information visit: www.haccc.org/TexasJobFairStudents

  • 2-05-2008 Total Petrochemicals is in need of a MIS/IT intern. To apply, interested applicants would need to log on to their accounts on the Career & Testing Center website www.lamar.edu/careercenter and reference job #4025. Resumes should be attached in a Word Document and emailed to recruiting.portarthur@total.com also include the job title in your subject line.
  • 2-04-2008 Mr. Foreman has volunteered to offer tutorials on Java any of our students, especially those in COSC 1337 or above at 2 p.m. in Maes 211 (the Linux Lab) every Monday and Wednesday afternoon. It is a great opportunity for the students to ask any questions that they have concerning Java. Of course, he will not do their homework for them, but he will discuss difficulties that they are having with regard to the Java language.
  • 1-31- 2008 The Lamar Undergraduate Research Network (LURN) is a new, officially recognized, student organization dedicated to participation in

scholarship, research, and creative activity by undergraduates from all disciplines. We want to promote, present, and motivate the publication of undergraduate research by helping students connect with faculty mentors, attend conferences, participate in academic competitions, and write up the results of their work for publication in state, regional and national journals. Research performed as an undergraduate greatly improves a student's competitiveness when applying to graduate and professional schools as well as for many jobs, and enhances Lamar's reputation as a high-quality academic institution as well. Modest funding to support related travel, equipment, and material costs is available. (See the Student Services tab on myLAMAR.) Please consider joining LURN. Anyone interested in more information at LURN can contact faculty sponsors Ellen Cover at Ellen.Cover@lamar.edu or eccover@my.lamar.edu. or Jeremy Shelton at jashelton@my.lamar.edu.

  • 1-31-2008 NASA Langley Research Center is seeking interested applicants for their summer scholar program. The LARSS program provides hands-on paid research experiences for qualified undergraduate and graduate students (rising juniors and above) on-site at NASA Langley Research Center. They are looking for students pursuing degrees in Engineering, Business, Physics, Chemistry, Space Science, Mathematics and many other areas of study. Interested applicants should register online at http://research.nianet.org/larss.
  • 1-31-2008 Bayer is currently recruiting for 13 summer internships for Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Chemistry, and Environmental Science Majors. The deadline to apply is February 15, 2008 and students would apply online at www.bayerjobs.com. The position would be at Bayer’s Baytown location.
  • 1-30-2008 Reynolds and Reynolds Company is currently recruiting for a Windows Programmer. Interested applicants should log on to their accounts on the Career and Testing Center website www.lamar.edu/careercenter and reference position # 4009 and send resumes via email to careers@reyrey.com.
  • Serebrum Corporation is looking for Master of Computer Science and Master of Engineering candidates with a minimum GPA of 3.0 and can sponsor students who have an F1 Visa and want to complete their OPT. Interested applicants should email their resumes to piyali@serebrum.com.
  • 1-21-2008 NASA Undergraduate Student Research Program: The deadling for applying for NASA's summer undergraduate research internships is 1/31/2008. Please see details at http://www.epo.usra.edu/usrp/.
  • The Lamar University Career and Testing Center is hosting a professional development workshop entitled "Is Your Resume Selling You?" on January 23, 2008 at 2 pm in the Landes Auditorium, Galloway Building Room 101. The workshop will be hosted by Enterprise and presented by Lamar Communication Alumna, Kim Marosis, Recruiting Manager with Enterprise Rent-a-Car.
  • Career Forum, as one of the Academic Enhancement Workshops, will be held between 2:00pm-3:00pm on Friday, Feb. 22, 2008 in Maes 107.
  • Ecmtek is looking to hire Computer Science students to fill some openings. They will also be present at the Texas Job Fair in on February 12th. Interested applicants should contact Shannon L. Copeland, Employer Relations & Career Advisor, at Lamar University Career & Testing Center.
  • 12-05-2007 Occidental Oil and Gas is looking for candidates to fill their database management/engineering support position. Interested applicants should log on to the Career & Testing Center website www.lamar.edu/careercenter and reference job # 3841.
  • 12-02-2007 NASA-USRP: Students can pick up to 3 centers to receive their applications. Students are advised to use all their picks so more centers can see their applications. Why limit yourself to just Houston? Summer session can be very competitive and students will want to take advantage of every opportunity to get into the program. Travel expenses are paid so that shouldn't be an issue. Please contact career advisor, Ms. Shannon L. Copeland, if there are any questions.
  • 11-20-2007 C&D Robotics is looking for a Controls Technician – Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Industrial Technology Majors are welcome to apply. More information about the position can be found online with the Career and Testing Center www.lamar.edu/careercenter by logging on to your account and accessing job # 3812.
  • 11-08-2007 NASA-USRP is currently seeking students for internships. The deadline has already passed for the Spring, but not for Summer and next Fall. Visit http://www.education.nasa.gov/usrp for more details.