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The University of Akron is part of a 15-university alliance that received a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to significantly increase the number of students from diverse backgrounds who earn bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation, as the NSF initiative is named, honors the congressman from Cleveland and currently funds 31 alliances nationwide.
The Ohio State University will lead the universities and four other agencies in the state to form the Ohio Science and Engineering Alliance. The alliance, which will receive $700,000 annually for five years, aims to double the number of undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds who earn bachelor’s degrees in science and high-tech fields and increase the number who go on to pursue graduate degrees.
Jeffrey Wallace, professor of social science and coordinator of the University’s Math and Science Initiative, and Paul Lam, associate dean of the undergraduate studies and diversity program in the College of Engineering, will serve as the project’s principal investigators for UA.
“The University has a number of programs on campus such as McNair, STARS and Upward Bound that are designed to address the issues of success in the math and science fields,” says Wallace. “The Ohio Science and Engineering Alliance program provides additional resources to integrate these existing initiatives and to join in new ones to achieve greater results in recruiting and retaining qualified minority students.”
Not only does the alliance address those key issues, notes Lam, “it supports initiatives such as the increasing diversity in engineering academics programs, a statewide undergraduate research symposium and research-based internships at consortium institutions.”
In addition to The University of Akron and Ohio State, the institutions involved are: Bowling Green State University, Case Western Reserve University, Central State University, Cleveland State University, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Dayton, Kent State University, Miami University, Ohio University, the University of Toledo, Wilberforce University, Wright State University and Youngstown State University. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Ohio Board of Regents, COSI and the Ohio College Access Network also are members of the new alliance.
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