The Michigan Robotics Undergraduate Curriculum: Defining the Discipline
  of Robotics for Equity and Excellence
Odest Chadwicke Jenkins Jessy Grizzle Ella Atkins Leia Stirling Elliott Rouse Mark Guzdial Damen Provost Kimberly Mann Joanna Millunchick
The Robotics Major at the University of Michigan was successfully launched in
the 2022-23 academic year as an innovative step forward to better serve
students, our communities, and our society. Building on our guiding principle
of "Robotics with Respect" and our larger Robotics Pathways model, the Michigan
Robotics Major was designed to define robotics as a true academic discipline
with both equity and excellence as our highest priorities. Understanding that
talent is equally distributed but opportunity is not, the Michigan Robotics
Major has embraced an adaptable curriculum that is accessible through a
diversity of student pathways and enables successful and sustained career-long
participation in robotics, AI, and automation professions. The results after
our planning efforts (2019-22) and first academic year (2022-23) have been
highly encouraging: more than 100 students declared Robotics as their major,
completion of the Robotics major by our first two graduates, soaring
enrollments in our Robotics classes, thriving partnerships with Historically
Black Colleges and Universities. This document provides our original curricular
proposal for the Robotics Undergraduate Program at the University of Michigan,
submitted to the Michigan Association of State Universities in April 2022 and
approved in June 2022. The dissemination of our program design is in the spirit
of continued growth for higher education towards realizing equity and
excellence.
  The most recent version of this document is also available on Google Docs
through this link: https://ocj.me/robotics_major