The Klein Institute: A Q & A with Louise Yates
USC Magazine/Spring 2006
[Editor’s Note: Louise Yates is Associate Dean of Admission and Student Affairs in the Viterbi School of Engineering. As overseer of undergraduate student affairs, her office will administer most of the new programs that are established by the Klein Institute for Undergraduate Engineering Life. USC Viterbi Engineer asked Yates to discuss the Institute’s role in student affairs and give readers a sneak preview of some of the new programs in store for undergraduate students.]
Why is the Viterbi School establishing an institute for undergraduate engineering student life at USC?
Because the engineering major is a difficult major, any way you look at it. It’s probably more difficult than 90 percent of all the majors available to undergraduate students. Engineering students work hard at the academics, and don’t often see the need for getting involved in other activities. We think that if we can provide a variety of personal and professional activities to support our students and help make their lives outside of the classroom a little more rewarding, they will begin to balance their lives a bit more and ultimately gain all the skills that will help them develop as engineers and leaders.
Describe the Klein Institute’s main goals and objectives.
Really, its main goal is to create a more cohesive and positive experience for undergraduate engineering students. We are interested in developing an undergraduate community, so that our students feel connected both in and outside of the classroom. After all, we are attracting some of the most academically gifted, talented young people in the country to our campus; naturally, we’d like to make sure they enjoy their time at USC and that they ultimately become great engineers! So many of them often get frustrated with the amount of time they have to spend on academics and this is one way to help them balance their lives, while encouraging them to stay in the field.
We’ve spent a lot of time carefully mapping out the foundations of the KIUEL institute. Its building blocks emphasize leadership development, building community, service learning opportunities, and cross-disciplinary activities. In developing these programs, our hope is that students will socialize and interact beyond the classroom, creating a positive community and overall student life experience for themselves, while at the same time developing and enhancing skills ranging from communication to volunteerism. In addition, we want to encourage and facilitate the interaction between students and faculty outside of the classroom.
Who is Ken Klein?
Ken Klein graduated from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering in 1982 with a dual degree in biomedical and electrical engineering. Today he is president and chief executive officer of Wind River Systems, Inc., a global leader in device software optimization, and serves on the Viterbi School’s Board of Councilors. As an alumnus of the Viterbi School, Klein has a unique perspective to bring to the board. As you know, his $8 million gift to found the Klein Institute for Undergraduate Engineering Life (KIUEL)- pronounced COOL — will help students feel more like they are a part of a community within Viterbi, to enhance the existing academic and co-curricular support services they currently have and to add new and more focused programs that provide even more opportunities outside of the classroom. Basically, the institute’s mission will be to make sure our students succeed in a variety of ways.
What kinds of programs will the institute support?
We have a range of ideas for new activities and events we’d like to introduce in the next few years. These programs are diverse and learner- centered to encourage proactive behavior. Hopefully, the variety will give every Viterbi School student an avenue for involvement within the school.
The very first set of programs that we will be offering next year will be leadership development programs, including a leadership retreat for all of our current student organization officers. In addition, we are developing a leadership seminar series as well a peer leadership consultant program to help all students understand some of the basic concepts about leadership that are so important today.
We have lots of ideas. They include programs such as an alumni mentoring program, career related workshops and seminars, an emerging leader program, cross-disciplinary activities and workshops, including undergraduate research symposiums, and much more.
Some of the service learning and globalization ideas include programs that would link students with community agencies in need of short-term technical assistance; interdisciplinary design competitions; an international experiential program providing opportunities for students to assist in solving technical problems in Third World countries; more opportunities for overseas experiences; and establishment of a KIUEL Student Arts Council, so that engineering students can get more involved with the arts and humanities activities taking place on campus.
When will this institute be launched?
Our first KIUEL programs will begin in the fall of 2006. The staff managing these programs will be housed in Tutor Hall, within our Student Affairs Office, with support being provided by our retention coordinator, as well as both our Career Services Office and our Center for Engineering Diversity.
How and in what ways will students benefit from KIUEL services and activities?
The primary goal is to get engineering students to participate in more out-of-classroom experiences that are actually related to their majors as well as help them build community within Viterbi. Our hope is that they will benefit, and hopefully thrive, with a community-building process, as they begin to develop deeper friendships and relationships with other students while learning some things that will carry them through their careers.
Although we already offer a variety of support services to help students make it through what is ultimately one of the toughest programs at the university, KIUEL will go beyond those services and take them to the next level. We want to graduate well-rounded leaders who are great engineers.
Will industry play a part in this institute and its programs? What about other participants outside of Viterbi School staff and faculty?
We encourage Viterbi School alumni to volunteer their time and resources to some of these programs. If they work in some of the companies we partner with, they can certainly help us design programs and activities for students that will help connect them to current engineers. The students benefit a lot from exposure to engineers from industry. They can help in a variety of other ways, too. Our industry partners are key to providing the information we need about what is expected of students after graduation. We will be seeking a lot of input from them as we move forward in designing these new programs; we will also be working closely with USC’s central Student Affairs Office and our own Viterbi School Writing Program office in developing all of these programs.
Do you think the establishment of KIUEL will help in attracting more freshmen and transfer applicants in the future than it does now?
I have no doubt. KIUEL is really one of a kind. I don’t know of another comprehensive institute specifically for engineering quite like it that has been established anywhere in the country. I think that as our programs are developed and gain momentum, their uniqueness will be attractive to prospective students when they compare various institutions as they decide where to attend college.
So yes, one of the things we hope to build on is our reputation for offering students a very broad, well-rounded undergraduate education with plenty of opportunities to develop important leadership, social and networking skills. We want to provide them with a place where they can transition from the university to real life in a relatively painless way, and have all the important skills they need in real life to be successful. We want them to call up their friends who are applying to colleges a couple of years after them and say, ‘Oh yeah, you have to do engineering at Viterbi.’
