Queens College and LaGuardia Community College recently announced initiatives to expand the enrollment of Hispanic and low-income students in STEM programs. This partnership is the result of a five-year grant awarded to CUNY back in 2016.
The plan also aims to provide research opportunities, career services, community outreach, and a refined curriculum.
“We all know that there’s plenty of evidence that if you teach STEM a little bit differently, where your mind-set is not that of a gatekeeper, but to teach, students actually succeed. Everybody in the community is going to benefit, because we’re not just going to teach better to Latino students, we’re going to teach better to every student at Queens College,” CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodriguez said on Twitter.
This initiative was created in an effort to provide more opportunities for Hispanic students as well as improve the higher education experience for these students.
According to a 2020 survey conducted by the Center for an Urban Future (CUF), CUNY has played an important role in increasing accessibility to STEM careers for students of diverse and low-income backgrounds, currently awarding nearly 10,000 STEM degrees annually.
“STEM plays an important role in our city, state, and nation and will continue to do so in the future…It is crucial that we attract students to the STEM field, especially traditionally underrepresented students,” Congresswoman Grace Meng said.
The program is a step in the right direction but much more needs to be done to increase representation of Hispanic students in STEM fields.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been tasked with…
Brown and Caldwell, a leading environmental engineering and construction firm,…
Humboldt State University, one of four campuses within the California…
