Historically Black Colleges and Universities have produced 40 percent of all Black engineers in America. The Atlanta University Center Consortium, with an established dual-degree engineering program, has contributed to this number for over five decades with a mission to increase the number of Black engineers.
Students in the AUC dual-degree engineering program earn a liberal arts degree at Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, or Morehouse College and an engineering degree at one of nine engineering partner schools. The partner schools where AUC students can earn graduate degrees in engineering at Auburn University, Georgia Tech, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, the Missouri University of Science and Technology, North Carolina A&T State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, and the University of Notre Dame.
Now with a $1.5 million investment from the A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation, the Atlanta University Center Consortium aims to expand its efforts to increase the number of minority engineers by creating the Institute for Dual-Degree Engineering Advancement (IDEA). The new institute will be a national hub for collaboration between 250 dual-degree engineering programs across the nation, providing models for best practices for dual-degree engineering students. IDEA will be the first institute in the nation at a consortium of historically black, private, liberal arts higher education institutions focused on dual-degree engineering.
