K-State using U.S. Education Department grant to support Big 12 engineering consortium and regional policy work

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Sources: Sue Maes, 785-532-5493, scmaes@k-state.edu;
and Mo Hosni, 785-532-5610, hosni@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Dana Reinert, 785-532-5493, dmr4159@k-state.edu

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

K-STATE USING U.S. EDUCATION DEPARTMENT GRANT TO SUPPORT BIG 12 ENGINEERING CONSORTIUM AND REGIONAL POLICY WORK

MANHATTAN -- A U.S. Department of Education grant that will help Kansas State University partner with other Big 12 universities to offer a nuclear engineering program to students at-a-distance also will help K-State foster regional policy support for multi-university programs.

K-State has received a grant of more than $600,000 from the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. The three-year project builds on the efforts of K-State's Institute for Academic Alliances and the College of Engineering to form an academic alliance across the Big 12 Conference.

Reginald Robinson, president and chief executive officer of the Kansas Board of Regents, will join other national higher education experts in advising project participants on policy matters. Duane Nellis, K-State provost, and Tom Rawson, K-State vice president for administration and finance, will work with Big 12 chief academic officers and chief financial officers to support multi-institution programming.

The engineering collaboration supported by the grant will have the potential to lay the groundwork for a long-term partnership among schools in the Big 12 Conference, said Mo Hosni, professor and head of K-State's department of mechanical and nuclear engineering and a key leader of the project. Current focus of the consortium will involve nuclear engineering.

In recent years, the United States has seen a sharp increase in industry demand for employees with nuclear engineering training. Even as new plants are being built to meet the demand for electricity, an estimated 30 percent of today's nuclear work force is expected to retire during the next five years, according to Hosni.

"In response to this demand, the Big 12 Engineering Consortium is striving to increase access to nuclear science educational opportunities by making the nuclear courses offered by Kansas State University, Texas A&M University, University of Missouri-Columbia and University of Texas-Austin available by distance education to students of the other eight Big 12 institutions," Hosni said. "The four Big 12 schools with nuclear programs also will partner to offer graduate students increased access to specialized courses."

Concurrent to the consortium development, the K-State Institute for Academic Alliances plans to analyze institutional, state and regional policies and procedures affecting higher education partnerships, specifically within the context of the Big 12 nuclear engineering program alliance, according to Sue Maes, co-director of the institute and one of the project's leaders.

"This project has the power to transform higher education to benefit students nationwide," Maes said. "Students will have increased access to online courses through the Big 12 Consortium, and the policy work will result in model policies and procedures that institutional, state and regional agencies can adapt to actively support multi-institution program alliances. It will create a fiscally responsible way to offer programs in emerging and high-demand areas."

Over the course of the project, the institute will involve a higher education policy expert team, state governing board and regional accrediting association representatives, and key institutional representatives, including chief academic officers, chief finance officers, registrars, college and department-level representatives and faculty.