Presenters: Mindy Wright, Andrew Bruening
This presentation will feature strategies for developing and maintaining successful high school—higher-ed—community partnerships, and will span the spectrum of single class partnerships to school/district-wide connections that maximize the scope of a school’s impact. Six years ago, Metro high school started with 96 students from 15 Franklin County school districts, backing from Ohio State and Battelle, and ideas about how to become a school that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. As Ohio's original STEM school, Metro is the model on which all other STEM schools in the state are based.
About the Presenters:
Mindy Wright, Assistant Provost, Ohio State University
Mindy Wright is the assistant provost at the Ohio State University. She, along with Aimee Kennedy, works to connect Metro Early College STEM High School and Ohio State faculty around early college experiences for Metro students. Previously, Wright worked at the Writing Workshop at Ohio State University from 1982 to 2007 as teacher and eventually director. There, she developed curricula (including two service-learning partnerships with local schools), trained teachers, conducted programmatic research assessment, and taught undergraduate and graduate courses. In 1985, Wright began work with education outreach programs such as the Board of Regents’ Early English Composition Assessment Program. In 2006, she established the Office of Community Partnerships to develop strategic partnerships among community organizations and faculty, staff, and students in Ohio State’s College of the Arts and Sciences. She also worked with STEM colleagues and Columbus teachers across the state to expand the Breakfast of Science Champions program, which offers hands-on campus visits for middle school students. On campus, Wright serves as a member of the Literacy Studies Executive Committee, the Service Learning Initiative Advisory Committee, ASC Middle Childhood Education Advisory Committee, and the Economic Access Roundtable. Off campus she serves on committees for Children’s Hunger Alliance, Columbus Museum of Art, and Columbus Metropolitan Club. Wright has developed and taught three multi-sectioned writing/service-learning courses, one of which is a multi-department project that works with a community literacy program to tutor recent immigrants in reading and writing English. She was one of the finalists for the 2008 Ohio Campus Compact David Hoch Award. Wright is also a member of the 2002 Leadership Columbus class. Wright holds a BA in English and mathematics from Wittenberg University, an MA in English from Brown University, and a PhD in English (rhetoric and composition studies) from The Ohio State University.
Andrew Bruening, founding teacher and Dean of Students, Metro Early College High School
Andrew Bruening is a founding teacher, lead science teacher, and co-dean of students at Metro Early College High School. Bruening has taught environmental science, engineering, senior research, and robotics at Metro’s Learning Center at Center of Science and Industry. He is faculty advisor and coach for Metro’s FIRST Robotics team (Metrobots) and has mentored several teams to the National Society of Black Engineers Regional and National Lego Robotics Championships. His innovative experiential techniques demonstrate his enjoyment of teaching and have provided students with mastery level concepts and ideas. He believes in involving students in research as much as possible and works to incorporate his own research experiences into the classroom. He has taught at the high school and college levels, including high school physics and Earth science classes from 1998 to 2001 and laboratory and undergraduate courses while a graduate student at University of South Carolina. Bruening has assisted in delivering the Garbology project to more than 1,500 students in central Ohio in conjunction with the PAST Foundation, Solid Waste Association of Central Ohio, and Metro High School. He has also presented at several regional and national STEM conferences. Bruening serves on the Board of Trustees of the PAST Foundation and is a founding board member of the Central Ohio Robotics Initiative (CORI). He also serves as a manuscript reviewer for the educational journal Theory Into Practice. Bruening holds a bachelor’s degree in marine geology from Eckerd College and a PhD in Geology from the University of South Carolina.
