Nuclear Workforce Development Scholarships and Enhancements Program Phase I: Outreach and Recruiting

摘要

Funded by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Workforce Development Scholarships and Enhancement Program at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) has been designed to provide five Scholarships for $6000 per semester for Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Technology undergraduate students who are pursuing an educational emphasis in nuclear power and who desire to contribute to the design, construction, operation or regulation of the nation's nuclear facilities. Recruiting for the nuclear-related workforce, particularly among traditionally underrepresented minorities, is of vital importance to both the economic future and security of the nation. The proposed effort also includes a collaborative enhancement program between Texas A&M University-Kingsville and TAMUCC to help in recruiting, mentoring and marketing efforts for the students in the fields of nuclear power, science and health physics. This paper presents Year I efforts and the results in terms of outreach and recruiting at TAMUCC. Initially, an outreach and recruiting effort was carefully administered to target and attract students interested to be part of the nuclear related workforce in the U.S. First, an outreach effort targeting regional area public and private high school graduating seniors and existing students in the university was organized to advertise and promote the scholarship program. This effort included high school visits and teacher networking, participation in college day fairs and internet posting through various websites. After months of effort in the middle of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster, a total of seventeen applications were eventually received by April 1st deadline. Secondly, a scholarship selection committee was formed by the university faculty, staff and a local industry representative to provide a fair selection process. The selection criteria included actual class rank, SAT/ACT scores, financial need status, reference letters, essay writing skills and whether the candidate was first generation U.S. resident college student. Each committee members' rankings weighed equally to determine the overall student eligibility ranking. The candidates were later contacted with official scholarship offer letters. The selection of five candidates out of top nine was realized in three rounds of contacting of two weeks of time periods. The recipients included four incoming freshmen and one existing university student. Finally, to implement an evaluation plan with the purpose of measuring this project's early impact in attracting and retaining students for careers in nuclear power, a first semester intake survey of not only award candidates but their peers recruited into the Engineering and Engineering Technology program was conducted. In this paper, we discuss the details of this program as it was implemented in the first year, with the latest findings.