FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Association of American Universities (AAU) Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative has received a second significant grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. The new grant will enable AAU to continue to support and assess the progress of the initiative’s eight university project sites, which were selected in 2013.
The ambitious project, which was announced in 2011, is taking a systems approach to improve the quality of undergraduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, particularly at the first-year and sophomore levels, at AAU member universities. The Helmsley Charitable Trust made the initial $5 million grant that enabled AAU to launch the initiative and provide the funds needed by project sites to implement reforms. AAU is an association of 62 leading public and private research universities in the U.S. and Canada.
The new $240,000 grant will give AAU infrastructure funds to continue to measure the eight project sites’ progress toward addressing the key elements of the AAU STEM framework and to conduct a cross-site analysis of data collected over four years of project implementation.
The continued partnership with the Helmsley Charitable Trust will also allow AAU to continue a number of other activities that promote the adoption of proven, evidence-based teaching practices in STEM departments at the AAU project sites as well as other AAU institutions. AAU will continue to support departmental and institutional efforts to encourage, train, and recognize faculty members for effectively utilizing these teaching practices. The association will also continue to encourage institutional leaders to sustain their commitment to the improvement of undergraduate STEM education.
“We greatly appreciate the generosity of the Helmsley Charitable Trust and its commitment to reforming undergraduate STEM education,” said AAU president Hunter Rawlings. “We see real change happening at our project sites as well as other AAU institutions. This grant permits us not only to continue to pursue change but also to measure that change in a way that provides a basis for similar efforts in the future.”