$600K NSF S-STEM Grant to Fund New Scholarship Program in Science

The Eberly College of Science at Penn State has recently been awarded a $600,000 grant from the Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM) program of the National Science Foundation. This grant will fund a new scholarship for science students transitioning to the University Park campus from one of Penn State’s 20 Commonwealth campuses in the 2+2 plan.

The new Eberly College of Science S-STEM scholarship program will provide change of location students with an $8,000 scholarship –  $4,000 per year for two years – and also offer access to academic advisors, career counselors, and mentors to help increase the likelihood for success in math and science programs. The program will fund at least 20 students per year for three years for a total of 64 scholarships over the program period. The initial phase will open the scholarship application in fall 2013.

More broadly, a central goal of the program is to discover strategies to retain and support science and math students and to increase their graduation rates with Eberly College of Science degrees. In the future, the college hopes to use what is learned during this program to build and more broadly offer support structures to all science and math students coming to University Park from the campuses in the 2+2 plan.

For more information on the program, contact the Mary Beth Williams in the Eberly College of Science at mew17@psu.edu.