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in the areas of Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Engineering Technology. He has actively advised undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, and minority students in academics and career guidance. Dr. Foroudastan has also served as faculty advisor for SAE, Mechanical Engineering Technology, Pre-engineering, ASME, Experimental Vehicles Program (EVP), and Tau Alpha Pi Honors Society.

Children in the sixties and seventies grew up watching cartoons in which characters used futuristic items such as computers and video phones. Now, less than fifty years later, such items are commonplace for many and promote international communications and commerce. Despite the ease with which technological advances have allowed ideas to be shared, language barriers and lack of access to culturally balanced information may still be difficult to overcome. The growth of global economies facilitates a need to understand cultures for which products and services are to be designed, produced, and sold. Surmounting these, and other, challenges is achievable through the promotion of foreign-student involvement in design clubs and through promotion of student-exchange programs. International student involvement in campus activities and student exchange programs facilitate communication, work to overcome cultural bias, and promote cultural diffusion and diversity while preparing future scientists and engineers for work in a global economy. Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) has effectively modeled cultural interaction through Engineering Technology Program Clubs such as SAE Formula One, SAE Baja, and Moonbuggy. Domestic students and international students improve their communication and leadership skills while simultaneously learning about varying cultures through these activities at MTSU.

Background: Evidence-based best practices are available for the reduction and prevention of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). Often, these practices are not consistently followed in many inpatient care settings. A learning collaborative model resulted in a cost neutral, rapid, sustainable, statistically significant reduction in CDI events across an 88-hospital campus system without requiring hospitals to standardize laboratory methods, increase spending or increase staffing. Methods: In March 2018, a healthcare system with 88 critical access and community hospital campuses across 29 states participated in a harms-reduction learning collaborative. The collaborative format included educational webinars, gap analyses, action plans, and coaching calls facilitated by subject matter experts (SMEs). A collaborative cohort of 11 hospitals (55% rural*) was identified as having significant opportunity for improvement. These facilities participated in 3 monthly coaching calls. The coaching calls supported peer-to-peer sharing of practices and discussions of challenges and successes, and educational materials and presentations were provided by SMEs in pharmacy and infection prevention. Results: Statistically significant changes for the 88-hospital system as a whole: (1) 2018 compared to 2017: P < .001 (statistically significant); (2) 1H2018 compared to 2H2018 (before-and-after collaborative): P = .001; (3) 2019 compared to 2018: P < .001 (statistically significant). Statistically significant changes for the collaborative cohort: (1) 2018 compared to 2017: P < .001; (2) 1H2018 compared to 2H2018 (before-and-after collaborative): P = .002; and (3) 2019 compared to 2018: P < .001. We used 2-proportion, 2-tailed z-test for our analysis. Conclusions: Utilizing a learning collaborative model that included webinars, gap analyses, and interactive coaching calls, a cohort of 11 hospitals was able to induce rapid improvements to adherence of evidence-based practices resulting in a rapid, sustained, statistically significant improvement for both the cohort hospitals and the healthcare system.*2018 American community survey, US Census.Funding: NoneDisclosures: None