REVOLUTIONIZING MSI TO R1 GRADUATE PATHWAYS THROUGH DISTRIBUTED TEACHING

Abstract

Morehouse College’s Dual Degree Engineering (DDE) program has leveraged its relationship with Michigan Robotics to introduce its students to University of Michigan’s undergraduate Robotics curriculum through the development of the Distributed Teaching Collaborative (DTC). The DTC connects students and faculty from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority serving institutions (MSIs) with doctoral universities that have very high research activities (R1 institutions) to deliver a unifying classroom experience, share distribution of resources, and prepare students for careers in AI. Since Fall of 2022, University of Michigan established a Robotics Department with an undergraduate program that emphasizes excellence in equity. A compelling feature of the department is its highly innovative approach to a robotics curriculum that allows for national scalability through collaborative distributed teaching. The curriculum, developed through active partnerships between Michigan Robotics and several MSIs, is adaptable to the teaching styles of MSI faculty, creating onramps to a robust robotics and artificial intelligence education that prepares students for R1 research experiences and graduate programs regardless of their background or where they are enrolled. The aim of the DTC model is to build MSI-R1 pathways to graduate programs at R1 universities by establishing collaborative teaching courses that have at least a 90% completion rate due to their social-interactions through student-student, student-instructor, and instructor-instructor interactions. The success of this project will be viewed through the number of students that complete DTC courses, matriculate in graduate programs, and maintain successful careers in STEM longitudinally.