Every five years or so, the U.S. Department of Education awards several multi-million dollar STEM grants to qualifying Hispanic-Serving Institutions. This year, Mesa College was one of the recipients. The $5 million will be distributed over five years and will go toward improving resources for students and faculty within the science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines, as well as some majors not typically included under the STEM umbrella, such as psychology and computer sciences.

According to the Department of Education’s website, “the purpose of the HSI STEM and Articulation Programs is to: (1) increase the number of Hispanic and other low-income students attaining degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics; and (2) to develop model transfer and articulation agreements between two-year and four-year institutions in such fields.” With a Hispanic population of about 37 percent, Mesa already qualifies as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, so Dr. Jennifer Carmichael, biology professor, and Dr. Donna Budzynski, chemistry professor, wrote a grant, outlining a three-part plan to spend the money. Carmichael explained that the grant will better Mesa as a whole. “It’s to renovate us as Mesa, to make us better as an institute providing services, of course focused on Hispanic and other minorities in STEM, but really… to benefit all students,” she said.

The plan is called STEM Conexiones because each of its three branches aims to build and strengthen connections that support STEM disciplines. The first part of the plan focuses on current STEM students. It will fund a STEM Resource Center, slated to open during the summer of 2017. There, students will build a community and receive support for their schoolwork. The center will house textbooks, scientific models, computers, and games. Students will have access to a dedicated STEM counselor who can help them parse the complicated requirements of a STEM major. They can also get help from grant-funded student tutors.

“We centered the whole proposal, since it was a Hispanic-Serving proposal, around the idea of family and connections; we want the resources here to feel like what your family support system is,” said Carmichael. “So if students don’t have places at home to study or if they don’t have support at home to study, they now have this place where they can walk in any time and everything’s there.”

Everyone will be welcome in the resource center, but its atmosphere is inspired by traditional Hispanic values. “Family is so important to a lot of cultures, but especially in the Hispanic culture [it] is sort of ingrained in people from when they’re young to when they reach us,” said Carmichael. To this end, the building will include comfortable seating, a place to eat lunch, and a network of other students. Carmichael emphasized that this idea of connections extends past the college years. “The scientific community is really one larger community,” she explained.

Eventually, the school will also build a research facility, where students can work toward honors projects or independent study. A lab manager will be onsite so that students can work at their own convenience instead of relying on a professor’s schedule.

Part two of the plan is professional development for faculty. This includes training in diversity and in mentorship, with the goal of improving student-faculty connections.

The final piece of the plan aims to improve accessibility to STEM majors. It creates connections between high school students and Mesa’s STEM program, likely through field trips and networking events.

Planning for the grant began last January, when Carmichael and Budzynski began interviewing colleagues across STEM departments to ask them which services would top their wish lists. Early in the grant’s implementation, the professors hope to speak to students directly about their needs.