Dissemination of our work and accomplishments has always been an important aspect of Foundation Coalition (FC) activities. Hundreds of papers, presentations, and workshops have been produced and received enthusiastically by audiences across the nation and even internationally. But as we plan for Year 8 and beyond, we find that our accomplishments in dissemination have been effective in relatively small circles of interested faculty members. And in seeking to understand why, we find that it is because we have followed the traditional academic dissemination model: papers, presentations, workshops, displays at educational meetings, etc. We have focused on what information we had to disseminate and did so through traditional mechanisms that reach only a small percentage of engineering faculty.

In Year 7 we have begun a shift of focus from passive dissemination to active persuasion, a shift that will continue and become stronger in Year 8. This change is analogous to the shift we have made in the classroom from lecturing to active learning. Our audience will no longer be passive recipients of the information we decide to give, but will be actively involved in a process that focuses on their needs. The FC leadership has already spent an intense two days working with a Raytheon Six-Sigma consultant to develop an aggressive marketing plan. As a result of our work with Raytheon, we now realize that we never made proactive decisions about who we needed to target or what those target audiences really care about. We now understand that there should be a hierarchy of communication objectives, the appropriateness of each depending on the state of the audience. We understand that we need to market an array of products and that the communication objectives guiding the preparation of those products should move faculty and administrators through a series of stages, from simply being aware of the FC to actually making changes along the lines espoused by the FC. Our objectives are to engender

• Awareness that the FC has been successful,
• Interest that we may have something that will be of value to them,
• Decision that they should find out enough to judge our results,
• Acceptance that our approach is advantageous, and
• Commitment that they will take action and change their own environment.

• Introduce the FC and its accomplishments, moving individuals from unawareness to awareness;
• Present information, data, and curriculum models that generate interest in someone who is aware of the FC;
• Present further supporting documentation, workshops, testimonials, and visits that will cause an interested individual to make the decision that the FC changes are worthwhile;
• Provide additional support to help these individuals as they take action on their own campuses to establish and institutionalize curriculum reforms.

The FC has already begun developing products targeted for specific audiences and stages.

Audience: University administrators
Level: Interest

Product: CD presentation outlining the history and success of the FC. Targeted to university administrators, this presentation provides a brief overview of FC vision, introduces the FC partner institutions, reviews the basic FC concepts, highlights the FC results, lists resources available to help other schools implement FC concepts, and provides a point of contact for those seeking more information.

Audience: Engineering faculty
Level: Acceptance

Product: CD entitled "Diversity in the Engineering Classroom." This interactive CD provides students exposure to complex situations and elicits critical analysis of behaviors. The CD will have an instructors manual to aid teachers in the effective use of the CD. Especially compelling is the fact that students get a chance to see the value of diversity from the opinions of others, ranging from other students to industrial CEO's.

Audience: Engineering faculty Level: Interest

Product: The FC website. In March of 2000, the decision was made to use Year 7 funds to support a FC "Dissemination Studio." This facility will supply the FC with communication professionals and will serve as a support resource for a large number of Year 8 projects. The studio will begin their efforts in the latter part of Year 7 with a complete overhaul of the FC website.

Our Year-8 activities have been divided into areas that fall into two general categories:

Marketing

• Materials associated with FC curricula;
• A/E processes and tools;
• The FC core competencies of cooperative learning, curriculum integration, teaming, technology, and underrepresented groups;
• Managing curriculum change

• associated with new partner campuses;
• The integration of emerging technologies such as smart materials or biotechnology into existing FC curricula

Each activity will reflect this shift of focus from passive dissemination to active persuasion, and the majority of FC Year-8 funds will be devoted to marketing FC products and processes to the engineering education community. We are confident that the changes we have made will make the vision as expressed in our strategic plan a reality: "The Foundation Coalition is a recognized leader in creating a new culture of engineering education that is responsive to technological changes and societal needs."