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A Double Pipeline of US Domestic Undergraduates for the University of Cincinnati Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Graduate Program

G. Ivan Maldonado, John Christenson, Eugene Rutz Nuclear & Radiological Engineering Program, University of Cincinnati

1. Introduction

Attracting a greater number of US domestic students into graduate programs and enhancing the ethnic diversity of the graduate student pool are goals shared by virtually all engineering graduate programs. For a nuclear engineering program, in particular, achieving or striving toward these goals can go beyond simply improving the visibility of a particular program. In fact, it can reshape and improve the attractiveness of the program to future graduate student recruits, it certainly improves the relationship with potential employers, and can ultimately materialize into increased federal funding from such sources as the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), organizations who share and support the above-noted goals.

Accordingly, the University of Cincinnati’s (UC) Department of Mechanical, Nuclear, and Industrial Engineering (MINE), specifically the Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Program, currently operates two successful programs that have been designed to explicitly “pipeline” talented US domestic undergraduates from various fields of science and engineering and from diverse ethnic backgrounds into its graduate program.

One such program, initiated in 2003, is a 5-year dual degree (BS Mechanical Engineering + MS Nuclear Engineering) which targets students typically seeking to enter a mechanical engineering undergraduate track. This program is known internally as the MNE-ACCEND program (Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering - ACCelerated ENgineering Degree) [1-2]. A second initiative, now entering its second 3-year term and partially sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE), is a “summer bridge” program that targets undergraduates from Tuskegee University (TU) at the sophomore and junior levels, and ultimately entices these underrepresented minority students into UC’s graduate program in nuclear and radiological engineering [3].

The purpose of this article is to share some of the details in these two programs, to provide a status report on their ongoing progress, and to highlight a few of the mechanisms that have led to the success of these graduate school “feeder” programs. Also, this article highlights some details within these programs that directly address one or more of the specific areas of interest to this special session and its audience, such as:

• Use of distance learning in nuclear engineering, • Utilizing laboratory experiences to facilitate student learning, and • University nuclear engineering program interactions with industry and national laboratories. “Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ASEE 2005, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Maldonado, G., & John, C., & Rutz, E. (2005, June), A Double Pipeline Of Us Domestic Undergraduates For The University Of Cincinnati Nuclear And Radiological Engineering Graduate Program Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14242