New Science Content Director for AP-TIP IN
The Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program for Indiana (AP-TIP IN), administered by the University of Notre Dame, welcomes its new science content director, Maureen McGrail, to help build students’ and teachers’ enthusiasm for science in their future.
McGrail joins program director Karen Morris and math and English colleagues in a mission to improve Indiana’s outlook for good jobs and a successful workforce. The AP-TIP IN program leadership, part of Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives, aims to spread college-level preparedness in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects in a growing number of public high schools across the state.
“I hope to be a role model for students, especially females, seeking careers in science or engineering,” says McGrail, whose career has included high school science teaching, university lecturing, and corporate management duties as a mechanical engineer.
She says she will “speak passionately” to students about the relevance of College Board Advanced Placement ® tests and courses to their “end goal” of meaningful employment in exciting STEM fields. McGrail’s work as science content director equally embraces working with teachers in the participating high schools, enhancing and rewarding their own engagement in AP ® courses.
Through the AP-TIP IN program, which is based on a model from the non-profit National Math and Science Initiative adopted in several states with support from private and federal sources, students and teachers share in training and incentives during the school year. AP-TIP IN directors this year will collaborate with educators in 30 high schools so that a larger and more diverse group of students will pursue particular AP courses and earn AP test scores that qualify them for college credits.
“Corporations need problem solvers, innovative thinkers, communicators, and team players,” says McGrail. “Science and STEM education are vitally important because they develop young people to successfully meet these needs.” AP-TIP IN is inviting corporate support to help raise the number of participants and to sustain the initiative beyond its five-year pilot stage.
McGrail was a mechanical engineer at the BP refinery in Whiting, IN, for more than a decade before becoming a teacher. She is familiar with the AP-TIP IN model because Gavit High School in Hammond, where she began teaching physics in 2005, joined the growing number of public school participants in 2013-2014.
Learn more about the AP-TIP IN program, which is conducted in partnership with the Indiana Department of Education, by visiting the Institute for Educational Initiatives website.