Media Contacts:

Dr. Orlando E. Hankins, 919/515-3292 or hankins@ncsu.edu
Mick Kulikowski, News Services, 919/515-8387 or mick_kulikowski@ncsu.edu

Dec. 18, 2000

Partnership Aims to Increase Minority Presence in Nuclear Engineering

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

African-Americans have been vastly underrepresented in the field of nuclear engineering. But now, an academic partnership between North Carolina State University and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University -- the state's two land-grant colleges -- may reverse this trend. Fueled for four years by a $375,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, the partnership is designed to aid NC State in exposing students at historically black colleges and universities to nuclear engineering topics and recruitment into the nuclear engineering graduate program, and aid the NC A&T mechanical engineering department in recruiting and retaining good students.

"This program represents a win-win scenario for both nuclear engineering and for students at NC A&T as it increases the pool of nuclear engineering graduates and enables interested students to pursue other options," says Dr. Orlando E. Hankins, assistant professor of nuclear engineering at NC State and coordinator of the program in Raleigh. "If successful, this program will represent a significant increase in the number of underrepresented minorities obtaining graduate degrees in nuclear engineering."

Students completing the program would receive a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from NC A&T and a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from NC State.

"Through the combination of shrinkage of nuclear engineering programs across the country and the aging and retirement of the current engineering workforce, there is a growing need for new nuclear engineers," Hankins said. "Since nuclear engineering programs are resource intensive and therefore isolated to a relative small number of universities, underrepresented minorities have not had the opportunity to be exposed to nuclear engineering as a career option."

NC A&T students satisfying the requirements for entering this joint-degree program (mechanical engineering majors with a 3.25 GPA or above) will formally select this program in the spring of their junior year. They will spend the summer between their junior and senior years conducting research and taking nuclear engineering classes at NC State, thereby facilitating the transition from mechanical engineering to nuclear engineering.

Students will return to NC A&T for their senior year. In the spring semester, students will take two NC State nuclear engineering courses, utilizing web- and/or video-based distance learning techniques. These two courses will count toward both the NC A&T bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and the NC State master's degree in nuclear engineering.

After conferral of the bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, students will be formally admitted into graduate school at NC State and will have a summer traineeship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where they will begin work on master’s degree research projects.

Students will then spend a year of study at NC State, taking an 18-hour course load, followed by another summer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the completion of the master's degree project.

Grant money will be used to defray costs of many of the academic expenses the joint-program students encounter.

Dr. William Craft, professor and chairman of the department of mechanical engineering at NC A&T, will coordinate the program in Greensboro.

--kulikowski--

This site is maintained by the NC State University News Services office.