(395c) The Chemical Engineering Summer School: Past, Present, and Future

The summer school for chemical engineering faculty has been in existence since 1931. The multi-day workshop was held intermittently until 1962 and has been held every five years, in years ending in 2 and 7, since then. The goal of the summer school is to educate faculty about new curriculum topics, evidence-based teaching methods, advising and service best practices, professional development, proposal writing, and related topics.

In general, attendees at the summer school are newer faculty members. While the early summer schools had total attendance on the order of 50-75, the 2010 decade saw attendance on the order of 200, including both presenters and attendees, due to enrollment growth and the retirement of baby-boom faculty members. Having the summer school more often than every five years is a possibility in the future, especially since more teaching-focused faculty are being hired.

While the early summer schools were organized by AIChE, they ultimately became associated with the Chemical Engineering Division of ASEE. However, AIChE has become the lead sponsor in the last few years in partnership with the ASEE Chemical Engineering Division. While the summer school was originally self-funded, in the past few decades, funding has been obtained from NSF and a variety of companies that routinely employ chemical engineers. Continuation of this level of external funding is always questionable. In order to facilitate the continuation of the summer school, with the possibility of having it more frequently, in conjunction with the AIChE Foundation, a fund has been established, and it is hoped that this fund will ultimately result in an endowment to support the summer school.

A detailed history of the summer school was published in 2010 and presented at the 2012 summer school. The history has recently been updated to include the 2012, 2017, and 2022 summer schools. The poster will present a history of the summer schools with the focus on the last three events and the goal to raise an endowment.