National Louis University Secures Funding for Programs to Propel STEM Education for Hispanic Students
New grants will help develop resources to increase transfer, retention, and graduation in STEM fields for students from under-served communities
Students participate in the 2021 Computer Science Symposium at National Louis University.
National Louis University, a leading Minority-Serving Institution of higher education in Chicago, recently secured substantial funding to advance STEM education for Hispanic students. The federal grants were awarded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. Through building out from an existing, solid foundation in its undergraduate Computer Sciences and Information Systems program and forging new, knowledge-sharing partnerships with local community colleges, NLU will help build a robust ecosystem in Chicago for supporting Hispanic undergraduates to succeed and graduate in STEM fields.
The funding and related initiatives, coordinated jointly by the Undergraduate College and the Centro de Excelencia, come at a time when the disparity in completion rates among underserved students in Computer Science programs is growing. In 2018, Latinx students comprised only 8.4% of graduates with bachelor’s degrees in computer science; Black students were even lower, at 3.8%. This apparent racial divide, and the resulting lack of diversity among computing professionals, is a national issue that affects broader indicators, perhaps most significantly the racial diversity of the STEM labor market.
NLU and its partners Black Hawk Community College and Morton Community College will use the funds to develop culturally-competent resources for under-represented students to succeed in these fields. “This support will allow us to take a huge step forward in serving these students,” said Melanie Flores, Ed.D., Director of the Centro de Excelencia at National Louis University. “By focusing on providing resources that students from diverse backgrounds have told us they are most interested in, such as a strong sense of community in their educational environment and a direct link with the professional world, we will be able to tackle this challenge head on.”
“It’s a tremendous opportunity, and we can’t wait to get started on these initiatives,” Dr. Flores added.
The National Science Foundation grant will enable NLU to implement STEM Community and LEarning, or Project SCALE. Project SCALE will enhance the existing undergraduate Computer Sciences and Information Systems (CSIS) program at National Louis University (NLU) that has strong support and structures for traditionally underserved students to facilitate NLU and relevant industry partners working together to develop a series of structured experiences in professional STEM settings, and will contribute to the knowledge base on how industry partnerships can use culturally competent approaches to strengthen STEM success for under-represented groups.
The Department of Education grant awards National Louis University, Morton Community College, and Black Hawk Community College $3,1422,996 over five years to enact Clarity and Community for STEM Success, or Project C2S2. The project takes an asset-based view of Hispanic undergraduates in STEM and uses innovative strategies to increase transfer, retention and graduation in computer science programs.
