Due to a newly announced $6.9 million investment from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) will enhance their efforts to successfully recruit, retain and graduate more underrepresented students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The CZI investment will support a partnership between the two California institutions and the University of Marlyand, Baltimore County’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program, an initiative that has served as a national model for placing underrepresented students on the path to terminal degrees in STEM fields. Grant funding will support UC Berkeley’s STEM Scholars Program initiative and UCSD’s PATHways to STEM through Enhanced Access and Mentorship (PATHS) Program.
“Over three decades, UMBC has developed highly effective strategies to support student success and increase diversity in STEM fields,” said Dr. Michael Summers, the Robert E. Meyerhoff Chair for Excellence in Research and Mentoring and Distinguished University Professor at UMBC. “It is truly thrilling to think about the national and global impact the Meyerhoff Scholars Program will have through partnerships like this. UC Berkeley and UC San Diego are among the top U.S. producers of undergraduates who go on to earn STEM graduate degrees, and by working together we can help shape the future of our national Ph.D. pipeline, with inclusive excellence as a core shared value of our work.”
To date, the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UMBC has produced more than 300 Ph.D.s – including 59 M.D./Ph.D.s – 141 M.D.s and 274 master’s degrees since its start in the 1980s. The Meyerhoff family encompasses more than 1100 alumni nationally and internationally and more than 300 students currently enrolled in graduate and professional STEM programs.
UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program adheres to 13 specific components that foster students’ success: recruitment, financial aid, a summer bridge program, an emphasis on the “Meyerhoff Values,” forming study groups, fostering a collaborative community, engagement in summer research internships, mentorship, faculty, family and administrative involvement and public support.
Keith Harmon, director of UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program, said after program leaders met with officials in STEM and diversity at both institutions, they felt that the adaptation of the program would be a “good fit.” Significantly, UMBC’s guiding efforts are to help UC Berkeley and UC San Diego sustain their programs long-term so that they become “integral, key components of the fabric of their institution,” Harmon said.
Harmon added that UMBC officials will train and equip UC Berkeley and UC San Diego leaders with strategies around how they established the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, built the program’s endowment, work with and pull in an interdisciplinary group of UMBC faculty for student mentoring and coaching and help students understand the culture of STEM. This will include sharing best practices for student success in undergraduate STEM education and how leaders can also support students in their research experiences and throughout their graduate admissions process, Harmon said.
