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Welcome, New PIT-UN Members!
Last year, we piloted a new member orientation and onboarding process for PIT-UN. Thanks to member feedback, we welcomed five new institutions this year with revised and improved versions of both processes. The institutions range from a public science and technology university, to several R1 institutions with student enrollments of nearly 20,000 each. Each institution has identified their PIT priorities, including designing more collaborative workspaces, co-designing technology, and developing an understanding of the differences between PIT needs in urban and rural areas.
A very warm welcome to:
- Brown University – Designee Suresh Venkatasubramanian
- Duke University – Designee Alexandra de Havilland
- James Madison University – Designee Emily York
- Missouri University of Science and Technology – Designees Kristine Swenson and Donald Wunsch
- West Virginia University – Designee Joan Centrella
You can read and share the full press release here on New America’s website.
Our 2022 HBCU members Lane College, Meharry Medical College, and Prairie View A&M University also attended the orientation and onboarding to expand their Year 1 plans and to refine their ideas for their 2023 Year 5 Network Challenge grant application.
Regional Career Fair Request for Proposal Winners
In February 2023, we launched a grant application for our member institutions’ Career Placement or Career Counseling Service staff who work with students interested in public interest technology. Our intention was to inspire a new generation of diverse and skilled students to pursue PIT careers, leveraging their understanding of technology to help keep us safe, respond to emergencies, design high-impact social programs, and engage in cutting-edge research. After hosting a successful and inspiring webinar on Building the PIT Career Pipeline, we selected nine winners from our RFP applicant pool.
Applicants proposed developing series of learning and career advancement opportunities such as a PIT Career Hub; PIT pre-career fair awareness campaign with videos and guest speakers; webinars on PIT career pathways led by PIT practitioners; video testimonies from students who have completed internships, research assistantships, or fellowships; and student job tools such as PIT career portfolio development and professional headshots. Career fair events will include an intra-institution social justice hackathon training and panel discussions with local PIT organizations on workforce skills, opportunities, and recruitment timelines.
Congratulations to our grant awardees, comprised of teams from:
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Case Western Reserve University
- City University of New York
- Cleveland State University
- LeMoyne-Owen College
- San Jose State University
- Stillman College
- Temple University
- University of California, Santa Cruz
The awardees committed to hold a PIT career fair in the fall of 2023, and report their processes so other PIT-UN members can easily adapt the processes for use at their own institutions.
Year 5 2023 Network Challenge Grant RFP is Now Closed
Last year (PIT-UN’s fourth year), 18 proposals from 48 institutions were awarded a total of $2.3 million in grant funds to further develop a research community and workforce as passionate about public interest as they are about developing breakthrough technologies. In 2023, the Challenge will build on this foundation by focusing on two specific areas:
- Educational Offerings, especially those that foster cross-disciplinary perspectives
- Career Pipeline/Placement efforts to develop the Public Interest Technology workforce in government, industry, and social impact organizations.
We look forward to reviewing the Challenge applications over the summer. We will see next at our Quarterly Call on Monday, June 12, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. EDT
Brenda Mora Perea