Washington, D.C. — Today, Congresswoman Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village) announced more than $240,000 in federal funding from the National Science Foundation for a California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI) project aimed at increasing the number of ethnically and culturally diverse individuals serving as faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

“Math and science fields continue to be a critical part of the U.S. economy, and ensuring that people from all backgrounds have the opportunity to succeed and become leaders in these fields is paramount for our nation’s success,” said Congresswoman Brownley. “I am pleased that CSUCI has received this award to move ahead with its program to help create more diverse STEM faculty, not only at the university itself, but also the broader University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems and even nationwide.”

“We firmly believe the greatest innovation happens when we harness the perspectives of a broad range of individuals from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and experiences,” said CSU Channel Islands President Erika D. Beck, Ph.D. “CSUCI is deeply committed to equity and inclusion for all and as a nationally-recognized Hispanic Serving Institution we are extraordinarily proud to be a part of this important research to increase the diversity of STEM faculty in higher education.”

The National Science Foundation awarded $240,055 to CSUCI for the project, titled “Collaborative Research: The AGEP California Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Alliance to Increase Underrepresented Minority Faculty in STEM.” This effort is a collaboration between CSUCI, UC-Santa Barbara, UC-Merced, and CSU-Fresno that aims to develop and test a model for creating a more diverse STEM faculty that is broadly replicable at Hispanic-serving institutions across the nation. The model will focus on career mentoring and instructional trainings.

Learn more about the program and award here.

Issues: , ,