Northern New Mexico College Establishes STEM Mentor Collective

Submitted by Chris Clark
on September 16, 2016
- 2:30 pm

Dr. Steven Cox and Northern engineering student Elizabeth Browne. Photo by John T. Denne/NNMC

NNMC News:

The National Science Foundation has awarded $300,000 over two years to the Northern New Mexico STEM Mentor Collective.

The Collective is a partnership steered by Northern New Mexico College, with UNM-Los Alamos, the school districts of Española Valley, McCurdy and Pojoaque Valley, El Rito and the Embudo Valley libraries, the Bradbury Science Museum, and key leaders at Los Alamos National Laboratory and its Foundation, the Center for the Education and Study of Diverse Populations, the Regional Development Corporation and Scientific Education Solutions.

The partnership will focus on raising aspirations and expectations in High School STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) topics by training and placing (in schools and libraries) a STEM Mentor Corps comprised of caring, exemplary NNMC and UNM-LA STEM undergraduates. By changing STEM aspirations and expectations while heightening their own sense of self-efficacy, the Collective expects this Corps to regenerate itself and so permanently increase the flow of the state’s indigenous populations into well-funded STEM college programs and well-paying STEM careers.

The National Science Foundation solicited this work though INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science)—one its 10 big ideas, https://www.nsf.gov/about/cong ress/reports/nsf_big_ideas.pdf

For further information about the Northern New Mexico STEM Mentor Collective, please contact Professor Steve Cox, steve.cox@nnmc.edu, 505.747.5424.