A new four-university alliance will provide summer study and undergraduate research opportunities to increase the role minority students play in Michigan's engineering and science fields.
The schools — including MSU, the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Western Michigan University — announced the formation of a Michigan-based Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program at a press conference Monday in Detroit.
To achieve its goal, the alliance will make new opportunities available for students before their first year of college, said Levi Thompson, a chemical engineering professor at U-M.
The universities will hold summer pre-first-year programs for students enrolled in the alliance. Sessions will include math and engineering studies at U-M, an engineering program at Wayne State and a science program at Western Michigan.
Incoming freshmen will receive a head start working in their fields of interest, Thompson said. Students enrolled in any of the four universities can attend a program that either fits their planned major or is closest to where they live.
"They will engage in authentic math and scientific research," Thompson said. "We'll have a calculus class or advanced chemistry course."
MSU isn't planning to hold any of the summer programs, but university students enrolled in the alliance can attend sessions at other schools, said Tom Wolff, MSU's associate dean of engineering and undergraduate studies.
Instead, MSU will concentrate on increasing opportunities for undergraduate research to students from across the four institutions.
"We are a larger research university than some of the other schools," Wolff said. "We have research opportunities at Michigan State that are unique to the university."
Wolff said a student in Kalamazoo would not commute during the school week to attend classes in East Lansing, but a Western Michigan student could do summer research at MSU, like working with a cyclotron, which is not offered at their school.
Thompson said it is especially important for minority students, who are underrepresented in engineering and science fields, to get firsthand research experience to keep them interested throughout their college careers.
"Getting (students) connected to research programs shows them how their course work applies, and gets them excited," Thompson said. "It's in the first year you either keep them or lose them."
Retaining minority students throughout the science and engineering fields is particularly difficult, Thompson said. Among traditionally underrepresented minorities — including blacks, American Indians and Hispanics — the graduation rate is near 50 percent in terms of students who declare an interest in those fields as freshmen and graduate with a related degree within six years, he said.
"It is a question of access and retention," Thompson said. "And we need to address these issues if we are going to provide the diverse workforce Michigan requires."
Improving students' chances of getting hired is another area MSU will concentrate on in the alliance, Wolff said.
He said MSU has the "longest and strongest" Cooperative Engineering Education Program among the other universities. MSU keeps a database of businesses who participate in the co-op, connecting them with students who might work with the companies before they graduate.
"It's a job-placement experience for the student," Wolff said. "The student will work for the corporation for a semester, come back to MSU for a semester and then go back to the corporation."
He said students get college credit for the experience, while building a working relationship in the engineering industry. This job-placement service will now be available to alliance students from the four universities.
Historically, students in the co-op program have a 70-80 percent chance of getting a job offer from the company they worked with, Wolff said. He named IBM, the National Security Agency and businesses in Silicon Valley in California as some of the primary employers in the more than 200 that make up MSU's database.
"It really allows companies to develop future employees," Wolff said. "Companies want a diverse workforce."
Josh Jarman can be reached at jarmanjo@msu.edu.
