SightLine Expands Foundry Educational Foundation Overture Grant Program
September 1, 2021, HOUGHTON, MI — SightLine, Inc. and the Foundry Educational Foundation (FEF) have expanded their partnership to grow the Overture Grant program, an initiative to support FEF’s strategic goals. The mission of FEF is to strengthen the metal casting industry by supporting unique partnerships among students, educators, and industry, helping today’s students become tomorrow’s leaders.
Brian Lewis, Executive Director of the Foundry Educational Foundation says of the partnership,
“We are excited that SightLine has agreed to assume a larger role in the management of FEF Overture Grants. We look forward to our continued partnership with SightLine and the positive effect they help create meeting the FEF vision”
Since 2019, FEF has trusted SightLine to provide valuable data insights for its member institutions to increase enrollment and retention.
After seeing successful data-informed strategies implemented at member institutions, FEF invited SightLine to partner with them on the pilot of a new grant initiative in 2020 — the Overture Grant program. These grants support FEF’s strategic goals of enrolling and retaining more students in metal casting programs to strengthen the industry’s talent pipeline. During the pilot rollout, three FEF member institutions received funding to train high school teachers as metal casting advocates, make improvements to department tour routes, and assemble portable “foundry-in-a-box” kits to give hands on experiences to middle and high school students.
“We are thankful to FEF for having supported countless students over the years at UWM to gain internships, scholarships and job placements. Now, with the aid of the Overture Grant and the SightLine team, we are able to attract high school and college freshmen to Foundry and Materials Science related degrees. It is our hope that this leads to an increase in the number of qualified engineers and trained workforce for the industry to sustain.”
— Dr. Pradeep K. Rohatgi, ScD, Director of UWM Centers for Composites and Advanced Materials Manufacture, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
After seeing the impact of the pilot, FEF has extended the Overture Grant program for two more academic years, with SightLine managing the expansion. With SightLine’s help, FEF hopes the Overture Grants will inform best practices for their 34 member institutions to adopt.
About
SightLine is a female-founded, female-operated business dedicated to empowering universities to help students succeed using predictive analytics. Our data science experts have developed and proven to inform strategies that have measurable impact on student outcomes, from recruitment all the way through graduation. We are proud to be the only provider in the market using advanced machine learning to craft customized solutions for each individual institution without deploying software- no out-of-the-box software or cookie-cutter solutions here
FEF is the cast metals industry’s educational program at the college level. It includes four-year technology schools as well as traditional engineering institutions and graduate schools. FEF programs span the broad range of higher education from production supervision to specialized research. Since 1947, the FEF has sponsored programs that have helped advance the industry through the grooming of its technical leaders. Working with over 30 member institutions and hundreds of metal casting companies, the FEF sponsors networking events, promotes job fairs, awards scholarships and advances the interests young engineers and technologists, preparing them for technical leadership in the industry.
Information about Foundry Educational Foundation can be found at www.fefinc.org .
Originally published at https://sightlinedata.com.
