Using On-Campus Centers to Enhance Course Content

Submitted By: jdbrownsmith
Co-Presenter: Jim Fox
Scheduled For: Tuesday @ 2:00 PM in Water Oaks II
Session Type: Session - Presentation (includes keynote & business mtg)

Abstract:

UNC Asheville is an undergraduate, liberal arts institution with a strong undergraduate research program. As is common in most universities, UNC Asheville houses centers that provide opportunities for student employment, faculty participation, and staff career opportunities. Centers also provide rich and varied opportunities for student research. Often overlooked is the impact that faculty participation in centers/programs can have on enhancing the academic classroom experience with real-world issues, practices, and problems. This contributes directly to the University mission of preparing students for productive careers. This paper provides examples of recent collaborations of Computer Science faculty with centers/programs at UNC Asheville. These collaborations resulted in creating and enhancing academic course content though student research & development projects, guest lectures, and use of intellectual property. This paper can be used as a guide to how course enhancement opportunities can be created, and insight into the kind of centers and projects that can lead to successful course content enhancement.

Presenter Bio: Dr. Brownsmith has extensive experience as an educator and as an information system software developer. He currently balances an academic teaching career with consulting and research at the National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC). He has worked for a silicon valley start-up company as technical courseware developer/instructor, for IBM as a compiler software developer, and has consulted in software performance and database design. Dr. Brownsmith is currently a faculty member in the Computer Science Department at UNC Asheville and a NEMAC research associate. Jim Fox is the Director of Operations for NEMAC (National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center) at UNC Asheville. In that position, he serves as the team leader and principal investigator for two major collaborations that deal with utilizing large environmental databases, spatial visualizations and other high end technologies to create products for decision making in complex situations. One project is in partnership with the US Forest Service and addresses threats to our nations’ forests; the other is the local engagement site for RENCI, the Renaissance Computing Institute for North Carolina.