Le Moyne College has been awarded a $650,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM) program. The grant will allow the College to recruit, enroll, prepare, and graduate 20 academically talented, low-income students majoring in biology, chemistry, biochemistry, mathematics, physics, information systems, computer science, or environmental science systems to join the STEM workforce and/or pursue graduate studies. This is the first NSF S-STEM scholarship grant awarded to Le Moyne.
The grant, titled STEM Community Outreach Research Engagement (SCORE) at Le Moyne College, covers a five-year period. Through this grant, 20 graduates in STEM disciplines will become highly qualified to contribute to their communities, workforce and society due to the excellent academic program, career preparation and service-learning activities with science content embedded in the project. Based on the demographics of STEM students and the scholar requirements, it is expected that 100% of scholars will be Pell eligible, 53% will be women, 12% will be under-represented minorities, and 17% will be first-generation college students.
The SCORE program is under the direction of Michael Masingale, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry, who will be responsible for the oversight of the project. Assisting with implementation will be Emily Ledgerwood, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology, Yue Han, Ph.D., assistant professor of information systems, Whitney Wood, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology and Darshini Roopnarine, Ph.D., assistant dean of student development.
“This grant will provide student participants with an outstanding opportunity that will benefit them the rest of their professional lives, no matter where their careers may take them,” said Le Moyne President Linda LeMura. “I’m grateful for all those at the College who played a role in securing this award from the National Science Foundation. Their work keeps these opportunities for students and faculty front and center!”
Le Moyne’s SCORE program will have a direct impact on the Central New York communities where scholars will carry out their service-learning projects and will support the work of project partners to the benefit of their clients and constituencies. The SCORE program will further cement Le Moyne’s relationship with the Syracuse Central City School District to build the interest of its high number of under-represented and low-income students to pursue STEM careers at the College.
The S-STEM program is part of the College's $100 million
Always Forward campaign, which was publicly announced in June of 2018.