Winds of Change - 2017 National Conference Wrap-Up - 35

ACS congratulates AISES on 40 Years
of Supporting Native People in STEM!

PICKING YOUR TOP COLLEGE

The American Chemical Society (ACS)
is a global community of 156,000+ members
in 140+ countries. We empower chemists
of today and nurture chemists of the future.

Led by Karen English, editor; Amy Norcross, managing editor;
and Kristen Goodfriend, art director, all with Winds of Change
The Winds of Change creative team presented a session to pre-college
students that focused on the importance of being informed when deciding
where to apply to college. Karen English broke the ice by asking several
questions related to attending - and completing - college: How many
students transfer each year? What does transferring cost? What about the
consequences of dropping out? She emphasized that finding a good fit is
critical for success in college. She also reminded the students that delaying
graduation (for example, by changing majors or transferring) inevitably
increases the cost, so it's important to "get it right" the first time if at all
possible. According to English, the annual roster of the Top 200 Colleges
for Native Americans, published each fall by Winds of Change as part of its
Special College Issue, is packed with data that can help with the task of
finding that good fit. Unlike most "top college" lists, the focus here is on the
Native community and the support system, from admission through
graduation. Using copies of the 2016-2017 list for reference (the 2017-
2018 list will be distributed in late November), students were given several
helpful tips to decode the information, identify which stats are most
important to them, and narrow their list of schools to apply to.

Learn more about ACS at

acs.org/SupportSTEM

AN OPEN INNOVATION PLATFORM
FOR STEM (STEMIO.ORG)
Led by Raymond RedCorn, graduate student
at Purdue University
A current graduate student at Purdue
University, Raymond RedCorn presented his
idea, STEMiO, to a small but eager crowd.
RedCorn, an engineer by training, has long
believed that Native people have an
advantage in STEM careers: they are able to
look at the bigger picture of what STEMfocused problems are trying to accomplish.
This is the basis for his web platform,
STEMiO. RedCorn introduced many
system-level problems and ideas and asked the audience how they
would map out these problems, making every node in the problem
or idea easy to access. Through STEMiO, he presented a solution to
the audience's ideas. Although his product is in a pre-beta-testing
mode, he hopes that STEMiO will allow researchers from all over to
access information related to problems they are working on, without
spending hours on Google trying to map it out themselves. RedCorn
also hopes that it will lead the "makers" of the world to spot problems
quicker and be more imaginative in their approaches.
aises.org

Denver » 2017 National Conference Wrap-Up * WINDS OF CHANGE 35
http://www.acs.org/SupportSTEM http://cobellscholar.org http://www.STEMIO.ORG http://cobellscholar.org http://www.aises.org
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