CaSGC Affiliate -- UC San Diego

CaSGC Education Associates Program at NASA Ames Research Center
http://edassoc.arc.nasa.gov/

The Education Associates program was initiated in 1998 as a cooperative program between Ames Research Center and the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), a California Space Grant Consortium affiliate under the authorities of the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Act. The Education Associates Program is designed to provide university students and faculty with experiential learning opportunities in the space sciences, engineering, science administration, and related fields at Ames Research Center. The program also supports NASA's science education and training missions and addresses the national need to develop a cadre of trained professionals with competencies in a wide variety of aerospace and related disciplines. Further, it provides ARC with a diverse population of eager, bright student interns as well as more experienced post-doctoral and faculty fellows in support of ARC's varied scientific projects and missions.

Over the past four years, over 400 students and faculty from some 89 different colleges and universities around the nation have participated. They have worked with about 250 different ARC sponsors and mentors on projects in every code of ARC. The program is expanding at ARC and there is growing interest at NASA to replicate the program at other centers.

In early 2002, the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California has requested that their role in the administration of the program be ended on June 30, 2002. The National Space Grant Foundation, a 501(c)(3) entity specifically established to advance strategic partnerships between Space Grant Colleges and NASA, has become the logical and appropriate new institutional base for this program. The California Space Grant Foundation (Foundation) performs the day-to-day administrative and management requirements of the program. Both the National and California Space Grant Foundations, along with the lead campus (UCSD) of the CA Space Grant Consortium, accepted the responsibility to administer the program for the mutual benefit of the participants and NASA. While the California Space Grant Foundation takes the lead role for administration and management of the program, the National Space Grant Foundation will play key roles in interfacing and networking with universities and educational institutions throughout the Nation.

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