How Drexel will use a $1.2M grant to increase number of STEM majors

Drexel University was awarded a $1.2 million, five-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to develop ways to retain STEM majors, according to a release. The news comes in the same week that the federal government announced that Philadelphia won a grant to run a youth STEM mentorship program.

It’s a problem that universities across the country face: Sixty percent of all undergraduates who begin college planning to major in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects do not complete a bachelor’s degree in STEM, the release said.

Drexel aims to tackle that problem by:

• creating a course for freshman STEM majors that provides them greater access to upperclassmen and faculty mentors
• training STEM professors
• developing a Center for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning (CASTL) for faculty, administrators, staff and students to work on projects focused on improving STEM education.

Drexel plans to share its findings from the program in a yearly symposium.