Encouraging the Technological Sciences in Appalachia

阿巴拉契亚学院协会（ACA）是一个由阿巴拉契亚中部的33所私立文理学院组成的联盟，旨在通过促进这些学院共享资源的能力来最大限度地发挥这些学院的作用。阿巴拉契亚中部地区需要计算机科学家、工程师和数学家，但大多数学院在这些领域的毕业生人数很少。该项目每年为来自阿巴拉契亚地区的合格的三年级或四年级学生提供40个奖学金，为期两年，这些学生就读于31所ACA学校之一。通过ACA办公室授予这些奖学金允许小型学校利用国家科学基金会的倡议，即使他们只有一两个学生对这些项目感兴趣，并允许学校为学生提供支持结构，这些学生可能无法在单个校园中获得。奖学金获得者被邀请参加ACA学术院长的秋季会议。在这里，他们有机会与同学互动，并满足研究生院院长和行业领袖。奖学金的存在鼓励更多的学生考虑主修这些领域，为受助人提供的支持结构支持他们在大学期间在学术课程中取得成功，并在就业或继续教育中取得成功。

The Appalachian College Association (ACA), a consortium of 33 private liberal arts colleges in central Appalachia, was formed to maximize the efforts of these colleges by facilitating their ability to share resources. Central Appalachia needs computer scientists, engineers and mathematicians, but most of the colleges graduate only a small number of students in these areas. This projects provides forty scholarships a year for two years to qualified third or fourth year students from the Appalachian area attending one of 31 ACA schools. Awarding these scholarships through the ACA office allows small schools to take advantage of the National Science Foundation initiative even if they have only one or two students interested in these programs and allows the schools to provide a support structure for the students that may not be available on an individual campus. Scholarship recipients are invited to the fall meeting of ACA Academic Deans. Here they have the opportunity to interact with fellow students and to meet graduate school deans and industry leaders. The presence of the scholarships encourages more students to consider majoring in these areas and the support structure provided for the recipients supports their success in their academic programs while in college, and success in jobs or further education.