A third goal for a comprehensive university AIRE program would be to facilitate SMET education for future K-12 teachers. A fourth goal would be to educate students in science and technology who will remain in their home communities and will not go on to advanced training. Many of those students will find technical and scientific jobs within the local workforce in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, aerospace, computer science, health care, and other key fields. An AIRE for comprehensive universities should emphasize connections with local industry to provide internships, research experiences, and jobs for graduating students. A major goal would be to help universities connect with their communities and to augment a much needed sector of the scientific workforce.
Comprehensive universities are a resource for research on teaching and learning.
AIRE awards to comprehensives might provide an opportunity for a focus in this area. These constraints must be met with special pedagogical skill. Since faculty members from comprehensive universities often have heavy teaching loads and little funding for travel to meetings, visible role models are particularly important. Conversely, it is important that those who are successful get proper recognition for their work and have the opportunity to disseminate their successes. It would be a mistake to set the bar lower for comprehensive universities, or to think that research, to be good, must be done somewhere else.