Academic Program for Excellence, or APEX, a summer bridge program designed to aid in the transition of incoming multicultural freshmen to Iowa State, will soon be bolstered this summer by the creation of APEXe.

APEXe, an offshoot program largely initiated by the college of engineering, is designed to cater specifically to incoming engineering students.

This is done so while also falling under the APEX umbrella, “a program anyone [meeting existing criteria] can apply for from any college,” said Ebony Williams, coordinator for multicultural programming at Iowa State.

Within the APEX program as a whole, 40 to 50 incoming multicultural freshmen are accepted each summer to participate in the eight-week program.

The program, which leads up until the beginning of the fall semester, is designed for students to adjust to Iowa State via coursework, group activities and dorm-life.

APEX, a program that has existed in various forms and titles for more than 30 years, Williams said, seeks to provide opportunities for all types of students.

Gary Mirka, associate dean of undergraduate and graduate education with the college of engineering, said he believes that the creation of APEXe will also have the potential to improve upon past summer engineering programs.

“We have had a program in the College of Engineering for awhile that was kind of a summer bridge program. We decided that the APEX program already provided much of the infrastructure,” Mirka said.

With APEX’s sound infrastructural management of logistical items such as providing lodging, meals and social activities for students, the College of Engineering could now turn much of its attention to, as Mirka said, the more “programmatic” engineering-oriented aspects of the APEXe program.

Such programmatic aspects include coursework, events and activities that the students do in the evenings. 

“Those are the kinds of things that we can be very deliberate about, and if the issues of housing and the logistics of getting all the students meals and things like that can be handled by the APEX program, then that allows us to be more focused on the more important programmatic side of things,” Mirka said.

One of these aspects deals with not only acclimating new engineers to life as Iowa State, but also to the professional world of which they are also soon to encounter.

“Also of importance to the [College of Engineering] is the exposure to business and industry and the kinds of things that engineers might be doing, giving them the opportunity to visit some facilities and see what engineers do and what kinds of things are going on. That’s an important component to this program as well,” Mirka said.

Specialized opportunities involving educational, social and professional acclimation for engineering students set to be available through the APEXe program can be attributed to the partnership formed between APEX and the college of engineering.

“[The partnership] really allows us to leverage the good work that they’re already doing at the dean of students office for the APEX program,” Mirka said.  “We’re just using our resources to get more students into the program and provide an educational experience that’s going to help the engineers be successful when they arrive in the fall.”