Broadening student research experiences through a summer exchange program across campuses

Abstract

Maryland Space Grant Consortium (MDSGC) was one of the awardees of the NASA Minority Serving Institution Partnership Development program of 2009 - 2010. Facilitated by MDSGC leadership at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and active support from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, faculty and undergraduate students at three member institutions of MDSGC have partnered to implement a one year collaborative action plan to promote experiential learning and research efforts consistent with NASA's strategic enterprises in space and earth sciences through this venture. Two of the participating institutions, University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) and Morgan State University (MSU) are Historically Black Institutions (HBI) and the third, University of Maryland College Park (UMCP), serves a large number of minority students. A major component of the partnership effort has been focused on a novel student exchange program among the three campuses. Three undergraduate engineering students were selected from each of the participating campuses to spend eight weeks of summer under the supervision of faculty advisors with active NASA related research projects at one of the other campuses. At the end of the eight weeks, each student presented their work to NASA personnel and faculty members from MDSGC affiliate institutions and other invited guests at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) at Greenbelt. Active involvement of MDSGC leadership at JHU, faculty at UMES, MSU and UMCP, and personnel of the Education Division of GSFC helped students. In this paper, we will highlight the novelty and learning outcomes of the student exchange program, as well as the experiential learning and research endeavors that the students participated in during the course of this program. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2010.