Prairie View A&M University and SUT-US about to launch a new Student Organization

Monica Lopez-Aguilera & Araceli Lopez-Acosta// SUT-US // October 22, 2019

Last month a delegation of SUT-US’ board members led by Steve Johnson, Roger Osborne and John Allen, all members of SUT-US Board, visited with with PVAMU’s Dr. Pamela Obiomon, Dean of of the College of Engineering, and with Dr. Mohamed F. Chouikha, Executive Director of SECURE Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, to explore the possibility of launching a SUT-US student chapter at PVAMU campus, an expansion of the current student chapters of SUT-US at Texas A&M University College Station and Galveston, Rice University, and the University of Houston.

 

On Friday September 13th, Steve Johnson and Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, Chair and President of SUT-US, met with Dean Obiomon and discussed about the relevance of establishing an SUT-US student chapter at PVAMU. “PVAMU is very interested in creating opportunities of collaborations with SUT-US because of the opportunities of academic and industrial engagement it offers to our faculty and students, specially members of our Cybersecurity Center and our Autonomous Vehicle Program” said Dean Obiomon.

Dr. Medina-Cetina stated “Adding the talent and energy of PVAMU faculty and students to SUT-US will help to create much needed bridges between academia and industry, and to expand and enrich the diversity of our Society. We are truly honored to have PVAMU’s interest for establishing a student chapter of SUT-US to create connections across all our technical committees actively engaged with underwater technology, including the Offshore Site Investigation and Geotechnics committee (OSIG), the Group of Environmental Forces (GEF), the Subsea Engineering and Operations committee (SEO), the Robotics and Automation committee (RA), and the Offshore Renewables committee.”

 

Following the meeting with Dean Obiomon, Mr. Johnson and Dr. Medina-Cetina met with PVAMU faculty, Dr. Annamalai Annamalai, Dr. Mingli Han, Dr. Jaejong Park, and Dr. Chang Duan, and with all students engaged in PVAMU’s AUV program. Mr. Johnson led a discussion on the benefits of setting SUT-PVAMU student chapter, and motivated both faculty and students to actively engage SUT-US.

 

Dr. Medina-Cetina, who also serves as faculty advisor of the SUT-US Texas A&M University student chapter (SUT-TAMU), explained the overall mechanism to setup PVAMU student chapter, and provided a number of examples of activities that SUT-TAMU, as well as a number of benefits that faculty and students can gain from affiliating to SUT-US.

 

Next stop on the PVAMU interest for the launching of its SUT-US student chapter, is the official kickoff meeting, expected for later in the fall of this year.

 

A quick review about PVAMU history:

 

Prairie View A&M University, is the second oldest public institution of higher education in Texas, originated in the Texas Constitution of 1876. In October 2000, the Governor of Texas signed the Priority Plan, an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights to make Prairie View A&M University an educational asset accessible by all Texans. The Priority Plan mandates creation of many new educational programs and facilities. The University’s enrollment now exceeds 8,000 including more than 2,000 graduate students. Students come from throughout the United States as well as many foreign countries. In the last five years, 5,970 degrees were awarded, including more than 2,400 graduate degrees. During the University’s 130-year history, some 46,000 academic degrees have been awarded.

 

Reference: www.pvamu.edu