Leadership Development and Outreach for ATE ATE PI Conference, November 24, 2012

Introduction to Mentor-Connect

Mentor-Connect Vision

A regenerative mentoring system for leadership development and

knowledge transfer to broaden the impact of the ATE Program.

Why Mentor-Connect?

+Need for highly skilled technicians

+ATE Community characteristics

+Wealth of ATE resources

+Experienced PIs willing to assist first-time applicants and less-experienced PIs

Why Mentor-Connect?

+ Two-thirds of CC’s have never had NSF funding

+ NSF ATE preliminary proposals eliminated

+ Complexity of “grantsmanship”

+ Mentoring pilot projects – demonstrated need

Mentor-Connect Goals

+Increase the number and diversity of successful first-time grant applicants to the NSF ATE program

+Enable new applicants to benefit from mentoring by experienced ATE principal investigators

+Strengthen leadership skills among faculty in advanced technological education

Mentor-Connect First Steps

+ Proposal development assistance for Small Grants for Institutions New to

ATE+ Guidance and resources for prospective and

funded PIs.

Contact Information

Contact information:Mentor-Connect office: scate@fdtc.edu843-676-8547 (SC ATE Center)

Elaine L. Craft, Principal InvestigatorFlorence-Darlington Technical College, Florence, SC