Proposal Fall 2020 SSTEM Award

Sponsored Research Newsletter Fall 2020

Proposal image

$1 Million for STEM Scholarships
G-STEMS PI and Co-PIs

G-STEMS PI Jani Lewis and co-PIs Eric Helms, Anne Pellerin, Amy Sheldon, and Melissa Sutherland

The hard work of a team of SUNY Geneseo faculty has earned a $1 million grant that will provide scholarships and other supports for STEM majors and contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Principal Investigator (PI) and Associate Professor of Biology Jani Lewis and co-PIs Associate Professor of Chemistry Eric Helms, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Anne Pellerin, Associate Professor of Geological Sciences Amy Sheldon, and Associate Professor of Mathematics Melissa Sutherland were awarded the maximum amount for a National Science Foundation S-STEM grant entitled “G-STEMS: A Comprehensive Program for STEM Majors, Including an Interdisciplinary First-Year Seminar, to Increase Retention, Persistence, and Graduation Rates and Preparation for Successful Careers.” Associate Provost for Academic Success Joseph Cope and Director of Institutional Research Julie Rao were instrumental in providing ideas and information for the grant proposal.

A new Interdisciplinary STEM Exploratory Seminar (ISES) will be offered to the G-STEMS scholars, and Professor of Psychology Anjoo Sikka will design a study to determine the seminar’s effect on retention, persistence, academic success, STEM identity and retention in a STEM major.

Anjoo Sikka
  Professor of Psychology Anjoo Sikka will design the G-STEMs education study.

The 5-year G-STEMS program will provide scholarships for 30 low-income, academically talented students majoring in Biology, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Chemistry, Geochemistry, Geological Sciences, Geophysics, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Neuroscience, Physics, and Applied Physics, who will receive collectively a total of 120 year-long scholarships, averaging $5,000 each. G-STEMS will also support the scholarship recipients with peer and faculty mentoring, cohort building activities, research experiences, and conference attendance and presentation experiences. The goal of the program is to increase the scholarship recipients’ retention, persistence and graduation rates, and prepare them to enter the STEM workforce or graduate school in STEM disciplines.

Investigation of the effect of the course will contribute to evidence-based methods that close the gap between low-income talented STEM students and their higher income counterparts at SUNY Geneseo. This research will inform institutional efforts to retain and graduate low-income STEM students in their majors. Depending on the outcome of the study, ISES could be adapted for other majors at Geneseo.