NSF Award
9987216
(99), (31), (59) The university and its corporate partners are implementing a unique NSF Fellows program aimed at increasing the enrollment, professional development and graduation of high quality, low income engineering and computer science students. This program is effective because it incorporates an integrated combination of scholarship support, co-operative education assignments and mentoring. The combination of real work experience and both financial and academic support not only attracts excellent students, but is providing access to and supporting success in a top quality technical education. <br/><br/>This effective program involves direct and active participation of many offices of the university and at least two major corporate partners, Ford Motor Company and Delphi Automotive Systems. The corporate partners not only provide co-operative work experiences involving real engineering and computer science functions, but they also match the NSF scholarship support with equal amounts of funding for each student. As such, this represents a model of partnership between academia, industry and government to meet an urgent national need: the attraction and graduation of increased numbers of technological professionals. <br/><br/>The location of the university and its history of success in attracting large proportions of women and minority students to engineering and science are sound indicators of success in attracting a diverse group of NSF-Industrial Fellows. The mission of the university to educate diverse teams that value all contributors and the NSF priority on increasing diversity in CSEMS education are both factors in the selection of fellows.
