2009 Alliance Day
Welcome
Dear Participants and Guests:
It is our distinct pleasure to welcome you to our Eighth Annual North Carolina Alliance to Create Opportunity through Education (NC OPT-ED) Alliance Day event, scheduled for Friday, October 2, 2009 at the Greensboro, North Carolina Coliseum Complex Center. The theme for the 2009 Alliance Day is “Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Preparation for Excellence in the Global Economy.” Alliance Day is sponsored by the NC Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) and the NC Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Programs (NC-LSAMP). One of the primary focus areas of the conference is biotechnology and the career pathways that comprise its development, manufacturing, and research. This North Carolina Alliance has a formal network including all other NSF-HRD supported underrepresented minority(URM)programs in North Carolina: the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program(HBCU-UP), Engineering Research Center (ERC), and the North Carolina Math Science Educational Network (NC MSEN), a K-12 program with sites at nine college campuses across the state. We have collaborated with the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI) as an external partner. PARI is an institute which offers teachers and students in grades 8-12 a unique, live, hands-on inquiry based approach to learning through internet control of a 4.6 meter radio telescope as well as astronomy/engineering/environmental science challenges to our undergraduate and graduate students.
The OPT-ED Alliance Day conference is a one-day interactive conference that serves as a forum to exhibit the research of undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields and the social, behavioral and economic science (SBE) fields. In addition, emphasis is placed on the attendance of middle and high school students who are our future pioneers in the STEM/SBE fields. The event includes poster and oral research presentations, student and faculty panels, recruiting fair and special-topic breakout workshops. The conference is also accessible to participants with disabilities.
Again, we are looking forward to seeing you at Alliance Day. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact our Program Manager and Alliance Coordinator, Larry Campbell via email at lecamp@email.unc.edu or (919) 843-6903.
Sincerely,