NEWS:      October 9, 2009 - Dr. Deborah Keyek-Franssen speaks at Kean University

“Increasing the Pipeline” – National Center on Women and Information Technology program to encourage community college students to complete university degrees in Computer Science and Information Technology.

Dr. Deborah Keyek-Franssen (University of Colorado-Boulder).speaking at Kean University October 9, 2009.

photos by Prof. George Chang

Dr. Deborah Keyek-Franssen, formerly of Haddon Township, NJ, visited Kean University on Friday, October 9, 2009. Dr. Keyek-Franssen is the Director of Academic Technology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she provides strategic leadership in the use and evaluation of educational technologies, directs the Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology conference, and helps shape the campus’s IT environment. Dr. Keyek-Franssen also serves as the co-director of the Colorado Coalition for Gender and IT (CCGIT), a statewide coalition of education, industry, foundation, and government partners that undertakes research and develops programs to increase the number of girls, women, and underrepresented minorities in IT education and work. CCGIT projects include Pipeline-in-a-Box, a collaborative effort with the National Center for Women and IT (NCWIT) that focuses on community college to four-year transfer, regional training for K-12 outreach road shows, and work with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment and other state partners on a project to military spouses project.

Dr. Keyek-Franssen’s talk at Kean focused on her work with NCWIT which has resulted in the developed of a toolkit which can be used by faculty members at community colleges to encourage students to continue their education at a university after completing a 2-year degree in Computer Science or Information Technology. Dr. Keyek-Franssen’s visit was hosted by the Dean Jeffrey Toney, CNAHS, and the faculty of the Department of Computer Science at Kean University. Attendees included faculty from Brookdale Community College, Essex County College, Middlesex County College and Union County College, as well as Kean faculty.

Dr. Keyek-Franssen outlined the steps which have been shown to increase participation in computer science by women and underrepresented populations, which include communication between faculty at community colleges and universities, student recruiting, articulation of transfer pathways between programs and emphasis on retention and graduation. Details of the NCWIT program which was developed by Dr. Keyek-Franssen can be found at www.ncwit.org.

Kean University has always had articulation agreements in place with New Jersey’s community colleges and students transfer to Kean for Computer Science and Information technology degrees with great success. Students from Middlesex and Union County Colleges, for example, now at Kean, have received National Science Foundation scholarships and Kean University Foundation grants to complete their degrees in CS/IT. The faculty at this event are interested in increasing the number of students that complete 4-year degrees after beginning their work at community colleges. Kean University Computer Science faculty regularly visit regional community colleges, at the invitation of their peers in the community colleges, and meet with students and faculty to identify opportunities for transfer students at Kean.

Participants were:
Ms. Ann Tickner-Jankowski (Transfer Resources and Articulation Coordinator, Brookdale Community College),
Prof. Trish Hines (Department of Computer Science, Brookdale Community College),
Dean Jeffrey Toney (CNAHS, Kean University)
Prof. Patricia Rodihan (Coordinator, Computer Science and Information Technology, Union County College),
Prof. Tony Minieri (Computer Science, Kean University),
Dr. Jianping Yue (Chair, Division of Engineering Technologies and Computer Science, Essex County College),
Dr. Steve Zale (Computer Science and Information, Middlesex County College),
Prof. Frank Burke (Chairman, Computer Science and Information Technology, Middlesex County College),
Professor Carolee Stewart-Gardiner (Computer Science, Kean University),
Dr. Patricia Morreale (Computer Science, Kean University) and
speaking, Dr. Deborah Keyek-Franssen (University of Colorado-Boulder).

[Thank you to Dr. Patricia Morreale who always provides excellent reports for the College of Natural, Applied and Health Sciences' website on activities within the Department of Computer Science. This is one of many.]