John Jay College has announced a $4.77 million award from the U.S. Department of Education to expand science, technology, engineering, (STEM) educational and career opportunities. The award was made through the National Science Foundation’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program to increase access for underrepresented groups to the nation’s STEM enterprise.
“As a proud Hispanic-Serving Institution, our goal at John Jay has always been to support our students’ success in college and beyond, and that’s exactly what this innovative new pipeline program will do,” said John Jay College of Criminal Justice President Karol V. Mason “Thanks to our creative and dedicated faculty and staff and this new competitive grant funding, over the next five years we will be able to support community college students in their journeys toward graduation from John Jay and meaningful careers.”
Alumnus Eugene Gonzalez-Lopez, Ph.D., went from living in a homeless shelter as an undergraduate at John Jay to earning a Doctor of Philosophy in neuroscience and pharmacology from Penn State College of Medicine.
The program will also serve students at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) and Queensborough Community College. Prof. Anthony Carpi, dean of research, said the project will work across the three colleges to support students with stipends, zero-cost learning materials, mentoring, skills workshops, grad school prep, and internship support.
“The three partner institutions on this $4.77 million DOE grant share a deep commitment to equitably bolstering socioeconomic mobility and life chances across our very diverse student communities,” said BMCC President Anthony E. Munroe.
The program will utilize advising that begins at the community college level and will pair students with designated math and science faculty who will work with them to show them the pathway to John Jay and beyond. The grant will also provide additional support for John Jay’s PRISM program which offers opportunities to undergraduate students in five majors to conduct high-level research with faculty to better position them for post-graduate opportunities.
“We will better understand their individual needs and expectations at every step of their education journey,” said Queensborough President Dr. Christine Mangino.
In addition, the grant will expand John Jay’s successful STEM Acceleration Program, which was developed through the generous support of BNY Mellon, opening it up to students at Queensborough and BMCC. The Acceleration Program offers workshops and tuition assistance to help keep STEM majors on track towards graduation.
Over the next five years, the program hopes to reach a 10% increase in the community college graduation rate, leading to a 10% increase in the number of students pursuing STEM majors at John Jay, and a rise in post-graduate success and the median income for STEM graduates two-years after graduation. John Jay hopes to bring in the first transfer students under this grant in the fall of 2022.
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