Alumni Grassroots Leadership Enables Sponsored Course Development

This paper demonstrates the importance of alumni voluntarism in creating experiential learning opportunities for future students while also facilitating the professional development of a faculty member. Specifically, the collaboration between two recent graduates and their former college professor resulted in the development of a new 400-level elective class containing both a lecture component and a lab component. Because of alumni efforts, the lab will use state-of-art hardware allowing students’ exploration of various concepts related to sensing and IoT (Internet of Things). The generous support of the employer effectively eliminates the financial burden to students and enables faculty professional development. Also discussed are some aspects of engineering education and relevant trends in alumni giving.