A Video Production for Undergraduate Recruitment and Retention

Abstract

The Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Cinema and Photography at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) have collaborated to produce a digital video that highlights careers and other professional opportunities in environmental and water resources engineering. The video is targeted toward highschool students and first- or second-year college undergraduates and, thus, serves as a recruitment and retention tool for related degree programs. The video includes a series of interviews that disseminate answers to questions such as: How much education is required to be an engineer? What is the importance of licensure? Where do environmental and water resources engineers work? What salary is expected? Is engineering difficult? And do I need to be good at mathematics to be an environmental or water resources engineer? Responses are provided by current undergraduate and graduate students at SIUC. The 20-minute video also highlights a number of experiments conducted in the SIUC engineering laboratories. A corresponding website is under construction that will include the majority of interview responses as both text and video clips. Users will be able to click on thumbnail images to hear or see different responses to the same question. The overall project is being supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Division of Undergraduate Education that includes the development of a CD-ROM and webbased database of engineering images for classroom use.