![\"\"](\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/media\/2011\/03\/ambassadors1c.jpg\" "\\"ambassadors1c\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nEach week, UConn\u2019s Engineering Ambassadors travel to schools throughout Connecticut with the goal of introducing school-age children and teachers to engineering, both as a profession and a way to understand and improve the world around them.\u00a0 In particular, some programs focus on engaging under-served populations who can bring new insights and perspectives to engineering and problem solving. This past fall the group started holding weekly trips to the Woodstock education system, introducing engineering to the K-12 students.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an excellent opportunity to engage our youth [in engineering], most students truly have a lot of fun with our activities,\u201d said Leah Pruzinsky, a junior in the engineering program at UConn. In the coming years, they plan to expand their visits to include up to 30 schools throughout the state. Although their main goal is to support the creation of engineering clubs at the middle and high school levels, the Engineering Ambassadors do not limit the students to engineering in general. \u201cIf our presentation leads students anywhere on the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) path, then our job was a success,\u201d said Engineering Diversity Program Coordinator Sonya Renfro.<\/p>\n
UTC Support Sows Opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n The Engineering Ambassadors program owes its genesis to UTC, whose $50,000 startup donation supports the group\u2019s activities.\u00a0 UTC has vowed to continue their financial support for the coming years. \u201cUTC has provided us with the catalyst we need to move forward, so that we can truly increase awareness about what engineering is all about,\u201d said Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education & Diversity Marty Wood.<\/p>\n Beyond school outreach, the Engineering Ambassadors are also working on their own to help promote engineering. During the semester, team members volunteer at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, with a common goal of informing the public about engineering, often by engaging them in stimulating activities. Through their demonstrations, the Engineering Ambassadors hope to instill simple engineering lessons and plant the seed for future students in the field. \u201cMost people aren\u2019t thinking about engineering, and they don’t understand that almost everything they use on a day to day basis has been created by engineers,\u201d said 6th semester biomedical engineering major Christine Filosa, \u201cAnd raising that awareness is our overall goal,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Looking toward the future, the group will continue to track applicants from the targeted schools as a means to set future goals and gauge development. Although still in its first year, the Ambassadors group has over 200 students on the membership list, and continues to grow. \u201cThe success of this group has already been astounding, and we hope to continue building upon our accomplishments,\u201d said Mr. Wood.\u00a0 For him and the Engineering Ambassadors, the aims of increasing engineering awareness and growing enrollments should not be a problem.\u00a0 After all, he remarked, \u201cEngineers are problem solvers. That\u2019s what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Engineering students know first-hand that engineering applies scientific concepts as tools in the creation of new and better products and services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":3597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-203509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 07:14:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/3597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203509"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=203509"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=203509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}