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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesUVI to Receive $2.3 Million in Education Grants

UVI to Receive $2.3 Million in Education Grants

The National Science Foundation has awarded the University of the Virgin Islands two grants totaling $2.3 million to support teaching and learning in science, technology, education and math.

The grants will make it possible for incoming and existing UVI students in science, technology, education and math (aka STEM subjects) to prepare for graduate school, to build a strong foundation for STEM careers, and to become high school science teachers.

A $2 million grant titled, UVI’s Comprehensive Approach to Retention and Persistence in STEM, will be awarded over a period of five years. This project is designed to build a strong foundation for incoming UVI STEM students through activities designed to increase the pass rate in developmental courses and to increase student preparedness for calculus through UVI’s Math Behind the Science Summer Bridge Program.

The university was also awarded $300,000, over a two-year period, for the Noyce Capacity Building Project: STEM Teach VI. This grant is intended to create a new teacher-preparation program at UVI.

Faculty in the UVI School of Education, the College of Science and Mathematics, and the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences have identified existing courses and established new ones to supplement the major studies of future teachers with the needed theoretical and practical STEM education training.

Camille McKayle, who is dean of the UVI College of Science and Mathematics, said she is excited about the effect the grants will have on STEM programs at UVI.

“Overall, we want to increase the number of students who are successful in STEM programs,” she said. “We also understand that much of the base for that success starts well before those students enter the university, and so we want to develop a program that recruits some of those STEM students into teaching, and provide them with an innovative approach that incorporates both the science and mathematics content, and the teaching aspect."

Further information about STEM education at UVI and the STEM Teach VI program can be obtained by calling McKayle at 340-693-1238.

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