Engineering Learning Initiatives
Engineering Learning Initiatives enhances the learning environment in the College of Engineering by providing opportunities for students to engage in cooperative learning, undergraduate research, and peer tutoring. The program also promotes teaching excellence in the college, administering the college’s Teaching Assistant Development Program, training undergraduates to be cooperative learning facilitators and peer tutors, and offering teaching resources to Engineering faculty.
Engineering Learning Initiatives staff includes:
Lisa Schneider-Bentley, Director
eng-learning@cornell.edu
Schneider-Bentley received her PhD in Sociology from Cornell in 1997. Her scholarly work focused on race, class, and gender inequality, and segregation in the labor market. She taught sociology as an assistant professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges from 1997–1999. Schneider-Bentley then took the position of senior director of research and evaluation at PowerUP, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding technology access and providing youth development resources for underserved youth. Before joining Engineering Learning Initiatives in December 2002, Schneider-Bentley evaluated PowerUP’s development of more than 950 after-school technology centers in underserved communities across the United States and designed a program guide for Save the Children's after school technology programs providing digital literacy standards and cooperative, project-based learning experiences for program staff and youth participants.
Linda J. Tompkins, Associate Director
lt57@cornell.edu
Tompkins has ten years of experience teaching biology at the secondary level and has presented dozens of science education seminars and workshops at local, state and national level educational settings. She has a special interest in developing community-based/experiential learning opportunities for her students. Before coming to the engineering college, she mentored science and engineering graduate students within the university in inquiry-based learning and effective teaching strategies. Prior to joining the Cornell community, Tompkins chaired the science department at Mynderse Academy High School in Seneca Falls, NY.
Alice Rockey, Administrative Coordinator
ar356@cornell.edu
Rockey comes to Cornell after more than 16 years at Ithaca College, many of those years working in teacher education and outreach programs such as the Partnership in Teaching Program, Access to College Education, and Saturday Academy. Rockey served on the Quality of Work Life Task Force, the Staff Development and Training Committee, and was a stakeholder in Ithaca College’s plan for a new ‘green’ school of business building.
