Truman State University Awarded $2 Million Grant
October 1, 2004
KIRKSVILLE, Mo. - Truman State University has been awarded the largest grant in the University’s history. Truman will receive $2 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF), through its Division of Undergraduate Education’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP). Jeffrey M. Osborn, professor and convener of biology, will serve as director of the STEP Program and is the grant’s principal investigator, and Jason E. Miller, associate professor of mathematics, is the grant’s co-principal investigator. The grant will provide funding for the creation of programs to increase the number of degrees that Truman awards in science and mathematics fields during the next five years. The ultimate goal of the Program is to increase the number of students who complete a baccalaureate degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
The STEP Program will establish collaborations between Truman and Metropolitan Community Colleges in Kansas City, St. Charles Community College and Moberly Area Community College. The Program will include a coordinated summer research community for undergraduates and yearlong programs to attract and support transfer students to science, mathematics and computer science fields from the community college partners. The award will also support the incorporation of research experiences into courses and the integration of curricula among all science, mathematics and computer science disciplines.
In addition to supporting on-campus programs, the STEP Program will support scholarly interactions among students and faculty from Truman and its community college partners with regional industries, research universities and research centers such as Missouri Botanical Garden, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Missouri-Rolla, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, The Boeing Company, Cerner and Towers-Perrin.
A range of programmatic initiatives will begin to be put into place during the Fall 2004 semester, and the STEP Program will begin taking student applications for the summer research program in January 2005 on the Program Web site, http://step.truman.edu.
The STEP Program will give a rapidly growing number of Missouri students easier access to high-quality baccalaureate degrees in the sciences.
The Program will directly involve a minimum of 175 undergraduate students as program participants, and hundreds more will be influenced by field trips, visiting speakers, workshops, curricular innovations, and the increased flow of information between institutions and disciplines.
Truman’s was one of approximately 15 grant proposals funded out of 163 proposals submitted.