The Office of the Education Pipeline is happy to announce the expansion of the SUNY and New York Academy of Sciences’ STEM Afterschool Mentoring Program. Three additional SUNY campuses- Stony Brook University, SUNY Oswego, and SUNY ESF– will bring STEM graduate and post graduate students to students in community middle schools, where they will share their passion and expertise to high-need middle school students.
In September 2012, SUNY was awarded a $2.95 million grant from the National Science Foundation, in collaboration with the New York Academy of Sciences and SUNY Empire State College, to bring to scale a successful afterschool program in which SUNY graduate students and postdoctoral fellows studying in the STEM disciplines serve as mentors to students in high-need middle schools. In the past year, SUNY and the Academy have put in place this exciting, systemic science education initiative that reaches across New York State. . After extensive training facilitated by the Academy, in partnership with SUNY Empire State College, mentors provide hands-on tutoring in six curricular topics: robotics, genetics, earth science, ornithology and biodiversity, math, and space science. These SUNY students are supported by their campus faculty and are receiving the types of mentoring and teaching experiences that give them a leg up in achieving their professional goals, while also teaching youth critical STEM skills and acting as positive role models.
In 2012-13, over 30 graduate mentors from three campuses (SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, the University at Albany College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in the Capital District, and SUNYIT in Utica and Rome) served as mentors to nearly 300 middle school students.This year, the STEM mentorship program will be expanded to three additional campuses – Stony Brook University, Oswego State, and the College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The expansion will double the amount of students that will get the benefit of their very own SUNY STEM graduate mentor that will bring them hands on, personalized tutoring, an opportunity sure to benefit all who are involved.
“Congratulations to the six participating SUNY campuses for helping to bring this innovative STEM mentoring program to scale,” said SUNY Senior Vice Chancellor for the Education Pipeline Johanna Duncan-Poitier. “At SUNY, we are committed to helping more students graduate from high school prepared for college and the workforce. Science literacy and fundamental skills in the STEM disciplines are critical to student success. Our three pilot schools have done great work in bringing STEM experience to the students who need it most, and we look forward to the research-based results this expansion will bring to the development of a systemic infrastructure for STEM and the education pipeline.”