MTC News: 2000

Lincoln University/Missouri DOT Summer Co-op Program

The Midwest Transportation Consortium, principally through the efforts of the Associate Director Charles Nemmers at the University of Missouri - Columbia, reached out to help bring Lincoln University (an Historically Black University and a junior partner in the MTC) into the transportation arena. In that the Missouri DOT (MoDOT), the local Division Office of FHWA and Lincoln University had already begun some preliminary discussions the opportunity was right to introduce the "Transportation Scholars " program as a vehicle to help to bring about this connection. Accordingly a Partnership Agreement has been executed among MoDOT, Lincoln University and FHWA that includes the Transportation Scholars program and the MTC as key components. Because the timing of the UTC grant and the academic year were not in sync it was not possible to get students into the program this year. The plan is to use the MoDOT summer co-op/intern program for Lincoln University students as the selection vehicle for the scholars program for the 2000-2001 academic year. The framework to support this activity in the Fall is now in place. This program is beneficial to the students in terms of employment opportunities, for MoDOT in that it supplies quality co-op students, and for Lincoln in that it now has a connection into the transportation field that it did not have before.

Contact: Charles Nemmers, University of Missouri-Columbia
Phone: 573-882-0071, email: nemmersc@missouri-edu