AUM receives grant to help STEM students with disabilities earn degrees
Auburn Montgomery recently received a grant for $279,930 over five years from the National Science Foundation to help AUM students with disabilities earn college degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and, ultimately, enter the workforce.
The money AUM will receive is part of a $3 million grant award to the Alabama Alliance for Students with Disabilities in STEM. The alliance involves Alabama State University, Auburn University, Auburn Montgomery, Tuskegee University, Central Alabama Community College, Southern Union State Community College and the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. It also includes six school systems in Lee, Chambers, Elmore, Montgomery, Macon and Tallapoosa counties and has an outreach component that covers the entire state.
“We plan to identify all students with disabilities at AUM in the STEM curriculum and then train the seniors and juniors to mentor sophomores and freshman,” said Glen Ray, co-principal investigator for the grant and professor in AUM's School of Sciences. “I think a lot of kids don’t go into the sciences because it’s pretty rigorous, and it’s even harder for kids with disabilities because of the special equipment that is necessary to help them.”
The grant will fund peer-mentoring endeavors such as Bridge to the Baccalaureate and Bridge to the Post-Baccalaureate programs, as well as a Graduate Bridge program and summer research internships. It will also provide mini-grants for research-based interventions at colleges and universities and will fund technology enhancements for Alabama Science in Motion, a program that provides high-tech laboratory experiences for high school students and professional development for teachers throughout the state.
“Each summer we can provide two students with a summer research internship program where we send them to be a part of a summer research program at AU, ASU and Tuskegee,” said Ray. “We’ll pay students for mentoring and for their internships.”
Undergraduates with disabilities participating in the Bridge programs will receive a renewable $2,000 stipend per academic year while participants in the Graduate Bridge program and summer research internships will receive $3,500 each. The Alabama Alliance, one of nine such National Science Foundation-sponsored alliances in the country, will support 106 students with disabilities majoring in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines each year.
Ray said he would eventually like to train AUM sophomores and freshmen to mentor and recruit high school students with disabilities.
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Oct. 15, 2009 |
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