Penn State Behrend
    School of Engineering
    5101 Jordan Road
    Erie, PA  16563-1701

    Office: REDC 234
    Phone: (814) 898-6271
    Fax: (814) 898-6125
    Email: ib4@psu.edu

Kathryn Holliday-Darr
Biography

Kathryn Holliday-Darr is an instructor of engineering graphics at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. She received her B. A. in Industrial Arts in 1978 from the University of Northern Colorado and the M.S. in Education Industrial Arts in 1988 from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. She received the Frank Oppenheimer Best Paper Presentation Award for Engineering Design Graphics Division from the American Society of Engineering Education’s 54th Annual Midyear Conference (EDGD ASEE)in November 1999. She also received the Collaborative Instructional and Curriculum Innovation Recognition Award in 1996 and Penn State University’s Provost’s Award for Collaborative Instruction and Curriculum Innovation in 1995. Ms. Holliday-Darr is a member of the Engineering Design and Graphics Division of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Kathy Holliday-Darr came to Penn State Behrend in 1985 with eight years of teaching experience, previously working at Girard High School, Girard, PA; Dawson County High School, Glendive, MT, and Wasson High School, Colorado Springs, CO. She was a field manager for Top Notch Applicators in Greeley, Co during 1977-1978.
                                               
Mrs. Holliday-Darr is involved with VIZ: Improving Cognitive Visualization with a Web-Based Interactive Assessment and Training Program with Dawn Blasko and Jennifer Trish Kremer from Behrend’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences and is one of the co-founders of the VIZ website. This site was developed for several reasons. 1) To identify incoming engineering students with poor visualization skills in order to work with the students to improve those skills. 2) To be used in research for colleagues and students interested in studying spatial skills. 3) To provide spatial skills testing and training to anyone with access to the Internet, i.e., other universities, high schools, etc. Initial funding was provided through a faculty initiative grant providing programming and instructional design support. These activities have led to many teaching innovations in this area.

Mrs. Holliday-Darr has been very involved with outreach programs, i.e. Math Options for 7th & 8th grade girls and accompanying teachers. This program focuses on providing hands-on experiences to learn about careers that use math. Math Options for returning girls and their parents is follow up program with hands-on activities to keep the interest in math and science alive.  She also serves on the Math Options advisory board, and was the coordinator for the engineering portion of MCE/WISE - which is a program for minorities and females just finishing their junior year of high school and are interested in mathematics, science, engineering, etc., She was also the director for two summer residence camps for high school students interested in engineering technology (Tech Prep) and one day camp for minorities interested in engineering. Mrs. Holliday-Darr feels it is also important to work with K-12 teachers and has been involved in a teacher training program called High Aspirations.