Sacramento State has won significant seed money in its effort to grow STEM programs.
The University has been awarded a five-year, $1.5 million grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of the latter’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program). Sacramento State professors Lynn Tashiro (Center for Teaching and Learning) and Mary McCarthy-Hintz (Chemistry) are co-principal investigators on the grant proposal, Building Capacity: STEM Faculty Professional Learning in the Zone of Proximal Development. Di Xu, a professor of education at UC Irvine, also is a co-principal investigator.
The project seeks to build institutional capacity for improving undergraduate STEM teaching and learning. It will support efforts to improve the teaching effectiveness of STEM faculty and to advance knowledge about strategies that lead to increased use of evidence-based and equity-minded teaching strategies.
Sac State is among the first 31 colleges and universities to receive awards for NSF’s HSI program, funding 31 projects and totaling approximately $45 million. The grant runs Oct. 1, 2018, to Sept. 30, 2023.