On Incentives For Innovative Cooperation Between Industry And Academia

New partnerships are developing between industry and Alabama A&M University as two new engineering programs are brought up on-line in Huntsville, Alabama, a highly focused region dedicated to world class advanced space systems, communications and manufacturing technologies. This paper describes examples of collaboration between Alabama A&M University and industry. Collaborative efforts have aimed at: accreditation issues under the ABET criteria 2000, technical information exchange, promotion of internships, company tours, student scholarships, engineering laboratory development, implementation of industry best practices for project development, research contracts and grants. Industry and Government Agencies seek partnerships and alliances with universities and research institutes to benefit from key know-how expertise found in university’s researchers and to promote technical expertise for the long term. The Boeing Executive on Loan Program and the NASA Administrator’s Fellowship Program, have sponsored engineers and scientist on loan to the university which provide an avenue for universities to export /import industry know how, industrial practices and a different approach to both everyday operations and long term infrastructure development. The collaboration of Boeing with the School of Engineering and Technology provided substantial support towards program preparation for the fall of 2000 accreditation visit for the civil, electrical and mechanical engineering programs. The NASA Administrator’s Fellowship Program provided support for the development of the High Performance Computing Facility in the ME Department. The authors provide an insight of how corporate culture and academia can resolve differences in procedures and address issues of mutual interest. The authors infer that highlighting the benefits of industry and academia collaboration provides incentives to sustain for sustaining long term industry involvement with academic programs. P ge 795.1 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright ” 2002, American society for Engineering Education