Marketing Engineering and Applied Science Careers (MKTC) Subcommittee
Update to the Steering Committee
March 22, 2006
The OPAS Marketing Subcommittee met on March 7th at PSU for the first time.
The group reviewed the OPAS Marketing Mission, and discussed ways to make it more specific, and establish target populations in order to prioritize (as our resources cannot cover all audiences). While members noted the importance of starting early, as is recommended by National Engineers’ Week, such as in elementary school, there was also a recognized need for needing results sooner; or grabbing the “low hanging fruit”, such as targeting high school students. The group also wanted to try and target middle school students in some way; maybe start with administrators first, then teachers, then counselors; and asked if they should also consider students out of high school who aren’t in college yet; 20-something women who are also a potential group; and compressed work-week people who work at Intel and other high tech firms.
The group is considering the following revision to the original Marketing Mission:
To increase the number of Oregonians in K-14 aware of and interested in pursuing engineering and/or applied science as a career, and gaining the educational background and skills they need to successfully do so.
Recommendations:
The overarching goal is to assure that every student in high school or middle school has been exposed to engineering and has the resources available to make an informed choice about STEM educational opportunities. The group identified three priority strategies:
- Create a multi-tiered program to build awareness of opportunities and career options
- Leverage and/or replicate existing models and best practices, and
- Enhance state/industry/education/association partnerships.
Review of Options and Ideas for Fulfilling Mission
The sub-committee discussed the need to do some research on where the gaps are in terms of certain groups’ needs not being well met; getting all schools to be part of a listserv as one way to reach them, while building up a level of trust with these groups through pointing to and providing valuable resources; put together a tool box for schools with resources that they can access on-line primarily, to make teachers’ jobs easier. The group discussed needing to ensure that we are targeting diverse students, and conferring with the OPAS Diversity Sub-committee at some point, and have them review our strategies and plans.
The group agreed that we needed to do more brainstorming before we develop a draft communications plan; and have discussions with other sub-committees about their ideas and needs. They also discussed outreach efforts and models that currently work, and how the sub-committee can use current “best practices” to market the OPAS goals.
Members suggested others that we should add to our Marketing sub-committee; if you have additional suggestions, please get those to Di at diane_saunders AT ous.edu and she will follow up. We could use more people in K-12, community colleges, and admissions at colleges. The group is meeting again in the second week in April.
For questions or information regarding this webpage, please email Jo Oshiro or call (503) 725.2910.