The National Science Foundation awarded Augsburg College a highly聽competitive $1 million grant for continued support of the AugSTEM聽Scholars Program. Under the direction of Professor聽Rebekah Dupont,聽the program will provide scholarships to as many as 80 academically聽talented students with financial need who are pursuing studies in science,聽technology, engineering, and math.
The four-year grant is part of NSF鈥檚 work to address the need for a high-quality, diverse workforce. With a traditional undergraduate student body聽that is more than 35 percent persons of color, Augsburg is well positioned聽to support this goal. The program provides direct financial support, delivers聽hands-on learning, offers research opportunities, and pairs each student聽with a faculty mentor. Research shows this combination of hands-on聽learning and close mentorship is highly effective in helping students leave聽college ready for graduate school and the workplace.
Editor鈥檚 Note: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 1565060 and 1154096. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
At the end of March, junior physics majors Gottlieb Uahengo, Mohamed Sheikh-Mohamed, Amir Rose, and Fred Vedasto attended the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) conference in Pittsburgh, Pa. The conference included workshops and programming for grade school, collegiate, graduate, technical professional, and international entities of the Society. Their travel was funded through the NorthStar STEM Alliance, an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) which is intended to double the number of African-American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, Alaska Native and Pacific Islander students receiving baccalaureate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).