As part of an ongoing effort to better understand the needs of the ATE community and to strengthen and support the work of grantees, ATE Central conducted a set of interviews with a group of twenty-eight ATE PIs in 2016. The result of these interviews is the 2016 PI Interview Report, which we hope will help all of us better understand the strengths of the ATE community as well as the challenges we face.

The interviews focused on several types of questions, some pertaining to the ATE program itself and the impacts of the grantees’ work, and others focusing on how ATE Central can better support the goals of individual projects and centers.

The report is divided into three sections: the first is a set of highlights that touch on key findings from the interviews; the second, which makes up the bulk of the report, provides an overview and details the responses given by project and center PIs; and finally, the third is a brief conclusion section that responds to the issues raised and suggests possible avenues that may further support the ATE community. Below are a few key highlights:

• PIs are excited to share the positive impacts that the ATE program has had on students and faculty, and even the impact that ATE has, in some cases, had on the interviewee. PIs provided significant examples of how ATE had helped students gain confidence, conduct research, move into leadership positions, find fulfilling employment, and more. They also provided examples of deep collaboration within and beyond their campus and region and with a variety of stakeholders, including K-12 partners, industry and small business, and others in the Higher Education arena. Some PIs discussed the impact the program has had on their own lives, both professionally and personally. One PI in particular talked about the program as having infused her teaching with a new level of excitement and meaning and having helped her remember what she loves about working in Education.
• There is a real change in the way PIs talk about sustainability in contrast to the interviews conducted five years ago. More and more PIs understand the nuances of sustainability – a deeper understanding that not everything needs to be sustained and that there is no one “right” answer to how to go about sustaining project and center deliverables. Several PIs were comfortable admitting that they had needed to modify their approach to sustainability from when they wrote the proposal originally, but seemed confident about the options they were exploring.
• While PIs all agreed that outreach is a critical component of their project or center work, most seemed to feel that they do not need to have a formal outreach plan. In fact, of all the PIs interviewed almost nobody had a formal outreach plan in place.

We are very grateful to all the ATE PIs who took the time to share their thoughts, stories, triumphs, and challenges during this set of interviews. We hope the report will help the ATE community, the National Science Foundation and, of course, our own project ATE Central, find better ways to work together and ultimately continue to strengthen the education of STEM students, and enhance professional development opportunities for STEM educators, in community and technical colleges across the United States.