Kentucky’s Bellarmine University is creating a scholarship program to recruit “high-achieving”, low-income students for its STEM programs, particularly, computer engineering, computer science, math, and data science.
The program comes following a nearly $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
As per a statement on the university’s website:
The program will provide career-related experiential learning, through internships or research with industry partners in the community, and help all scholars attain STEM employment or enter a graduate program within six months of graduation.
“Thanks to the expertise and dedication of our faculty, Bellarmine has made tremendous progress in our effort to secure more federal dollars,” President Susan M. Donovan said.
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“This grant from the National Science Foundation—one of the largest federal grants Bellarmine has received—will help academically talented low-income and first-generation students envision and achieve rewarding careers in the STEM fields.”
Stats from the university suggest the technology sector is increasing in Kentucky, with Louisville Forward pledging to add 6,000 tech jobs to the local economy by 2023.
The university says it hopes the scholarship will help add “much-needed” diversity to the STEM workforce by recruiting and developing traditionally underrepresented students.
According to data collected by the National Science Foundation and quoted by Vermont University, Ph.D. degrees in science and engineering fields earned by Black students grew from 2.6 per cent to 3.4 per cent among all degrees in those fields from 2008 to 2018.
But Black Americans made up around 13 per cent of the U.S. population in 2018, suggesting much more needs to be done to increase diversity in STEM fields.
Grants and scholarships, like the Bellarmine program, are one way to address the problem.
In August, a separate grant — this one totaling $10 million and sponsored by the Philadelphia STEM Equity Collective and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was announced, aimed at helping Black, Latinx, and all female-identifying students in the Philadelphia area pursue STEM careers.
According to a statement on the GSK website, the STEM Equity Collective will work closely with “schools, out-of-school time providers, universities and colleges, employers, local government, and the philanthropic community” to “identify and close gaps confronting children from backgrounds underrepresented in STEM” over the next decade.
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According to GSK, Philadelphia is America’s eighth-largest STEM industry hub.
It’s also a city that’s predominantly non-white. About 43 per cent of the population is Black, and 15 per cent is Hispanic or Latino.
But Black, Hispanic and Latino individuals remain underrepresented in STEM fields, accounting for roughly 11 per cent of science and engineering employees, despite making up 27 per cent of the overall U.S. workforce.
Female-identifying individuals of all races account for 50 per cent of the U.S. college-educated workforce but represent 28 per cent of the science and engineering workforce, according to GSK.
Part of the education gap is the result of schools lacking resources to fully engage students with STEM and limiting teacher access to professional development opportunities.
“It is up to us to clear the path for the next generation of nurses and doctors and scientists – for the next generation of the heroes who call Philadelphia home,” Martinez-Davis told reporters during a virtual press conference last month.
“GSK’s investment will provide backbone support for collective action. It will enable partners to dig in and seek to surmount the barriers that stand in the way of students from all of the city’s neighbourhoods.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: We have reached out to Bellarmine for clarification on its definition of “high-achieving”, as well as the requirements/pre-requisites students will need to be accepted into the program.
We will update the article with a date-stamped editor’s note at the top if we hear back.
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