Minority Student As A Scholar Program: A Research Grant Program For Minority Students At Penn State Altoona

Abstract

This paper describes an innovative research grant program for undergraduate minority students at Penn State Altoona. The program allows teams of faculty members and qualified minority students to develop proposals for research projects in various academic disciplines including engineering. These proposals are reviewed by a committee of faculty members and based on their recommendations, research grants are awarded by the program coordinator to selected student-faculty teams. The teams work on their research projects during the time frame of 6-8 months. At the end of the research project, each faculty-minority student team submits a written report to the program coordinator. Once the selected students complete the research projects, their academic progress is tracked until they graduate from their respective degree programs. This paper provides a description of the above mentioned research grant program for minority students. Several examples of engineering research projects recently completed by facultyminority student teams are listed. Obstacles encountered in conducting this program are mentioned. Finally, the impact of the above mentioned undergraduate research program on the academic progress of the participating minority students is described.