The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Bronx Community College a $5 million dollar grant for Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (S-STEM) (Department for Undergraduate Education, Award #1833852). This is one of the largest S-STEM grants that NSF has ever awarded to a community college. Principal Investigator Vicki Flaris will implement this grant with Co-Principal Investigators Luis Montenegro, Nancy Ritze and, at Lehman College, Pamela Mills.

Over the next five years, this will benefit 575 Bronx students who are pursuing degrees in math and the sciences. This S-STEM grant will fund a collaboration with Lehman College to provide and coordinate scholarships, research opportunities and faculty mentoring to STEM students while at BCC and as they transfer to continue their studies at Lehman College.

“This NSF S-STEM grant will help BCC as it builds a community of excellence,” says BCC President Thomas A. Isekenegbe. “The grant will leverage proven resources — on both campuses — to provide academically talented, low-income students with academic, financial, advisement, mentoring, career and enrichment supports intended to help them to secure a degree, further their education and enter the STEM workforce.”

The NSF grant also will fund BCC faculty to research, develop and design an instructional model to support these STEM students to persist and succeed in their studies.