The West Texan: Manufacturing New Engineers: WT’s Engineering PUP Identifies, Recruits Canyon Students

West Texas A&M University’s College of Engineering is constructing a different kind of pipeline.

The West Texan Winter 2023: This article appears in the Winter 2023 edition of The West Texan, in mailboxes soon. Click the image to read the full issue.

In collaboration with Canyon Independent School District, the College has built a Pre-University Program that’s bringing CISD students directly to the WT campus to study engineering and computer science— ultimately paving the way for many of those students to enroll at WT after high school graduation.

Think of PUP as a dual-credit program on steroids.

“The goal of a dual-credit program is to prepare students for any university, any program,” said Dr. Emily Hunt, dean of the WT College of Engineering. “With PUP, they get the feeling specifically for our engineering and computer science programs and see what it means to study them on a college campus.”

Students accepted into the program—about 40 in all for 2023-24—take classes on the WT campus, right alongside WT students, earning credits both toward their high school graduation requirements and their eventual college degrees.

“The students who qualify for PUP are in the top of their classes,” Hunt said.

The idea to expand PUP into Canyon ISD came directly from CISD administrators.

“We started talking about it three years ago,” said Marc Hamil, CISD director of secondary leadership. “We’ve had a hard time finding teachers who can teach at an advanced level in engineering and computer science classes. We started talking to Dr. Hunt, and they took it from there.”

Students accepted into the engineering program take two courses per year as juniors and seniors, earning 12 hours of college credit. The computer science program is now in its first year, and students eventually also will earn 12 hours.

“Unlike dual credit, they are on the WT campus, taking classes side by side with college students. That’s where the power of this program is,” Hamil said. “We can’t offer the level of engineering and computer science instruction that Dr. Hunt and her team can.”

PUP is a remarkable opportunity for CISD students, Superintendent Dr. Darryl Flusche said. 

“They’re getting to experience college life and getting their feet in the door,” Flusche said. That will benefit both WT and the Panhandle region in the long run, the CISD officials said.

“Our hope is that these high school students will continue to pursue degrees at WT because of the relationships they build and the experiences they have there,” Flusche said.

“Employers in this area really put a premium on homegrown talent,” Hamil said. “They can recruit people from outside, but will they stay? There’s a value in finding that talent here. It’s a win-win.”  

Overall, about 50 percent of students in WT’s College of Engineering are from the Panhandle area, and about 80 percent of them stick around after graduation, Hunt said.  The first cohort of PUP engineering students contained 20 students, 10 of whom came to WT after graduating high school.  The University helps make the decision to continue at WT as easy as possible, Hunt said.  “We’re offering these students enhanced merit scholarships—offers so large that it’s difficult for the students and their parents to say no,” Hunt said. 

PUP also allows WT to identify potential students early.  

“Dr. Hunt was visionary in this process, knowing that if students were showing talent and aptitude even before they are seniors, it is a good bet that they will continue to be outstanding when they are ready for college,” said Mike Knox, vice president for enrollment management. “With that in mind, Dr. Hunt and the Scholarship Office collaborated to make scholarship offers to PUP students before they even completed their junior year of high school. These scholarships were guaranteed, and as seniors, they had the opportunity in increase them.  

“We think that getting students to think seriously and early about WT as a great option takes a lot of stress out of the college decision-making process,” Knox continued. “Our goal is for these outstanding students to know that WT is a place where they can get an outstanding education, and they can do it without the financial stress of paying for college.”  

Such offers made WT hard to deny for students like Rhett Patterson, a freshman mechanical engineering major from Canyon.  

“I always had the idea of wanting to be an engineer, and when my counselor gathered those of us who qualified for PUP, I thought it would be a great way to see if this was something I’d want to do,” Patterson said. “One of the first classes is Introduction to Engineering, and we went through every type of engineering there is. It was super useful in terms of honing in on what I wanted to do.”                

PUP was “definitely a big reason why I chose WT,” said Patterson, who had been considering applying to the Colorado School of Mines or Kansas State University.  

“Going through PUP and getting an inside look at how the College of Engineering operates, how it was smaller but equal to those bigger schools, was huge,” he said. “WT offered more professor interactions and a smaller class size. They’re happy here for me to succeed.”

Photo: Rhett Patterson took Engineering PUP classes while a student at Canyon High School, then decided to attend WT instead of moving off to another school.