Abstract:

Background:
While racial/ethnic minorities represent a fast-growing group in colleges and universities across the U.S., African Americans have significant barriers to pursue education and careers within STEM disciplines. For example, minority students often have greater educational needs upon college admittance due to being underserved by the K-12 education system (Charleston & Jackson, 2011; Graham, 1997; Moore, 2006). Furthermore, although the academic performance of America’s students in general is less than desirable, the performance level for minority students continues to be extremely troubling (The Nation’s Report Card: National Center for Educational Statistics, 1990,1996, 2003, 2005).

Background:
This research paper presents a summary of objectives and outcomes of the Morehouse College Innovative Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Project (I-STEM) Project. I-STEM is a project-based framework designed to provide underrepresented minority students with challenging technological learning experiences and to increase student exposure to innovation and creativity in STEM disciplines within the context of real-world problem solving scenarios utilizing entrepreneurial concepts in order to promote academic success in high school and prepare students academically to attend a college or university. MC I-STEM explores the influences of these challenging opportunities on student’s interest in college, STEM course selection and achievement, interest in STEM activities and careers, and understanding of creating an Innovative STEM based business from ideation to market launch. The I-STEM program encourages participation of parents in addition to program components focused on student activities. I-STEM will engage underrepresented minority students in grades 7-11 in a long-term (3 year) STEM technology program that incorporates STEM mentors and role models from academia and industry that includes a 4-week Summer Program, Hands-on Field Experience, and Saturday Academy during the academic year.

Outcomes /Impact:
This project is designed to increase the number of underrepresented individuals in STEM careers. Morehouse College is an independent, fully accredited, historically Black, liberal arts college for men and is a pioneer in the preparation of young Black males to assume leadership in higher education, science, and government. This project takes advantage of this expertise to address issues of pre-K-12 education of underrepresented students. This project has begun to broaden participation of pre-college minorities in STEM fields and to introduce them to entrepreneurial opportunities within STEM fields. This will ultimately enhance the diversity of practitioners in a variety of STEM fields and thus increase the creativity and output in those areas.

This program could have significant influence on the national educational agenda by providing empirical findings on the best approach to recruit and maintain underrepresented STEM students. This program incorporates a strong leadership and entrepreneur component and will develop these students into future leaders. As mentioned above, it is proposed that this will have a secondary effect of increasing the academic performance and retention of underrepresented pre-college students and provide role models for these students to progress in a variety of STEM careers.

Keywords:

STEM, Innovation, Minorities.