YSU receives grant for teaching program

Print Story

Email to Friend

Discuss this story

The program is limited to just 80 students from a five-county area.

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University has been awarded a $340,000 grant to develop a summer program designed to help prepare high school students for teaching careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The program, called the Lake-to-River T4 (Teaching Tomorrow's Teachers Today) Summer STEM Academy, is a partnership involving YSU, Kent State University's regional campuses and Jefferson Community College.

"It's a dynamite program," said G. Jay Kerns, assistant professor of mathematics and statistics at YSU. "It's an incredible opportunity for these students."

It's also free of charge. Participants will get $3,100 for tuition plus a $200 stipend.

The YSU academy will be open to 80 students from Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana, Ashtabula and Jefferson counties who will be high school juniors or seniors this fall.

Deadline for applications is April 27. For more information, visit the Summer STEM Academy Web site at www.stemacademy.ysu.edu.

About the program

The program is looking for young people who are interested in pursuing careers as teachers in science, technology, engineering or math, Kerns said.

Students will participate in a two-week residential program at YSU in June, where they will take classes in statistics, biology and chemistry and then continue doing course work at YSU, Jefferson or one of the Kent campuses.

The program will end with a conference in the fall.

Participants will earn both high school and college credit for the classes and get a free laptop computer.

The funding is for one year, but the Ohio Board of Regents, which provided the grant, will monitor the program to determine if funding should be continued, Kerns said. The goal of the participating institutions is to make it an ongoing activity, he said.

Questions can be e-mailed to stemacademy@ysu.edu, or call Karla Krodel, director of the YSU Metro College credit program, at (330) 941-2464.

Growing field

The academy is part of Ohio's ongoing efforts to increase the number of students entering STEM fields. Nationally, the number of jobs in STEM fields is growing at five times the rate of other occupations, according to the Council on Competitiveness, yet the number of Americans receiving college degrees in STEM fields is on the decline.

Ohio currently ranks 36th in the nation in the percentage of undergraduate students earning degrees in STEM fields, according to the Ohio Research Experiences to Enhance Learning.

In response to the increased attention on STEM, YSU is reorganizing its academic structure and creating a college specifically dedicated to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The new STEM college is expected to be in place in time for the start of the fall 2007 semester.

Friday, February 9, 2007