Canisius College has received a one-million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation to enhance its STEM learning. The five year grant will allow the college to provide 700-thousand dollars in scholarships starting in the fall of next year.
Dr. Andrew Stewart is Assistance Professor of biology and principal investigator for the grant. Stewart tells WBFO News the scholarship will help students who are planning careers in STEM.
“These are people that are going to go on to either graduate school or go directly into a STEM career,” Dr. Stewart noted. The field includes mathematics and computer science, environmental sciences, animal behavior, and other similar non-pre-health career paths.
The money not only provides new scholarship funding, but also improves upon preexisting supports. “It’s money to develop activities and a learning community to try to support these students and help them achieve higher levels of success than we currently have,” Dr. Stewart told WBFO.
These new supports seek to improve student retention and a student’s success rate in the biology department. The department currently supports a program that according to Dr. Stewart, is “really rigorous, it’s really challenging.”
The grant will also allow the college to establish a "BIO Boot Camp" for all incoming undergraduates’ science students.
