ASB demographics specifically show minority deficiencies for the year 2000 and beyond. According to the study, the demand for new scientists and engineers in private industry is expected to increase by over 600,000 between 1988 and 2000. The scholarship award also represents summer salaries, special mentoring and conferences. In addition, students have the opportunity to perform research at ARL during school breaks and agree to join the ARL workforce after receiving their graduate degrees.
Today there are twelve in the program.
In addition to the awards they receive from ARL, each student is honored with numerous awards from their schools in areas such as leadership, scholarship and community service. Many are first and second ranked graduates from their school and all graduate Magna or Suma cum laude. The public acknowledgement was so well received last May at Xavier that Irby adopted this approach as a mechanism for advertising the program and attracting more applicants. The panel consists of three ARL senior researchers and three researchers from academia and industry. But that was nothing compared to the excitement, cheers, and standing ovation that occurred when I held up the oversized check.