March 21, 2024

As always, CENGR and EETI were well represented at the recent American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Southeastern Section Annual Conference at Kennesaw State (https://sites.asee.org/se/conference/). Read about us below!

• Wayne Johnson presented “Automation of the Capstone Team Formulation Process” during the “Capstones” session. His co-authors are Roger Hilten, Kevin Wu, and Jorge Devora.

• John Brocato presented “The Bioengineering Professional Persona: A New Communication-Intensive Course for a New Program in a New-ish College of Engineering” during the “Communication and Ethics” session.

• Isaac Dunmoye and Vincent Fakiyesi presented “Work-in-Progress Study on the Impact of Study Sheet Quality on Academic Performance: A Case Study in an “Engineered Systems in Society” Course Examination” during the “Curriculum Development II” session. Co-authors are Wayne Johnson and Dominik May.

• Zonila Robinson and Ramana Pidaparti presented “The Cotton Gin and The Westward Expansion: AI Concepts in Middle School Social Studies” during the “Digital Tools, Technology, and Other Topics” session. Their co-author is John Mativo.

• John Brocato moderated a session on “Metacognitive, Critical Thinking, and Inquiry Research” and became Chair of the Section’s Biological and Chemical Engineering division. He also won the Section’s Outstanding Campus Representative Award.

• Ramana Pidaparti served as a panelist for the panel discussion “Engineering Evolution or Revolution: AI and the Next Generation of Engineers”.

Although the ASEE national conference is the organization’s flagship event, our Southeastern Section annual conference has a long history of excellence with a few noteworthy advantages over the national gathering:

1. The Section conference usually costs less than half of what national costs (this year: $325 v. $775 for early-bird registration).
2. This lower registration cost also includes all meals during the duration of the conference: Sunday-evening reception hors d’oeuvres; Monday breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and Tuesday breakfast and lunch.
3. Southeastern Section papers count for scholarly activity at exactly the same level as national-conference papers — i.e., both papers go into PEER, ASEE’s proceedings repository (https://peer.asee.org/).
4. The smaller size of the section conference (~150-200 attendees v. 4,000+ attendees at national) enables easier and more efficient conference activities in general, including networking and session participation.
5. Participating in section leadership — as conference-paper reviewers, division and unit officers, executive-board members, and so on — is an easy way to get involved with both ASEE and others in your specific field (these are also excellent line items for your CV).
6. Section conference locations are often closer to Athens and thus drivable, which can help defray conference expenses (see below).

Next year’s section conference (2025) will be held at Mississippi State University (~6-hour drive). As always, the conference will host an Undergraduate Student Poster Competition, and competing students pay a significantly reduced rate ($75 this year) to attend, while graduate students who author and present conference papers also pay a reduced rate ($150 this year). All of this means your students can get professional-conference experience for a minimal amount of money, sometimes with no need to pay for airfare. Below are the locations for section conferences beyond 2025:

• 2026: University of Memphis, Memphis, TN (~7-hour drive)
• 2027: Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA (~7-hour drive)
• 2028: University of Georgia, Athens, GA
• 2029: University of Florida (exact city TBD)

UGA is hosting the section conference here in Athens in 2028. Although this is 4 years away, as the Host Site Coordinator, Dr. John Brocato has already started making preliminary plans. Before too long, Dr. Brocato will be looking for volunteers to help with event planning and logistics.