UNC receives $75K CDHE grant to help increase numbers of minority STEM students, graduates

By: InnovatioNews Thursday January 29, 2015 Tags: CDHE, Greeley, Lori Reinsvold, STEM, Susan Keenan, UNC

 

GREELEY - A $75,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) will fund an effort by the University of Northern Colorado's College of Natural and Health Sciences to help increase recruitment, retention and graduation rates of racial and ethnic minority students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields at UNC.

Funded through the CDHE's Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative, the effort will create a two-week summer program preceding fall semester to allow up to 24 incoming minority students from local high schools to work with professionals in biomedical science fields.

"We've partnered with Greeley schools and others in Weld County because they have a high portion of students in poverty with a high desire to attend postsecondary," said Lori Reinsvold, interim director of UNC's Mathematics and Science Teaching Institute.

Reinsvold teamed with Susan Keenan, director of UNC's School of Biological Sciences, and other UNC biology faculty to develop and implement the program.

UNC said an overarching goal of the program is to create a research experience for the students.

"We want to orient them to what it's like to be on campus and provide them with that sense of community, which will hopefully help them succeed while they're here," Keenan said.