National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering receives grant
The SBC Foundation – the philanthropic arm of SBC Communications Inc. – has provided a $15,000 grant to the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) to help underwrite scholarships for African-American, American Indian and Latino men and women minority engineering students at eight of NACME’s 20 partner institutions of higher education.
University of Missouri-Rolla is one of the eight universities where minority engineering students are benefiting from that support.
The seven other universities, all within the 13-state SBC service area, where students are receiving SBC-funded NACME support are: California State University, Los Angeles; California State University, Sacramento; Texas A&M University; The University of Texas at El Paso; The University of Texas at San Antonio; and University of Illinois at Chicago.
The SBC Foundation’s grant of $15,000 is helping NACME accomplish its mission to provide leadership and support for the national effort to increase the representation of successful African-American, American Indian and Latino men and women in engineering and technology, math- and science-based careers.
“The SBC Foundation’s support of education in technology fields is premised on the belief that every student should have an opportunity to succeed,” said SBC Foundation president Laura Sanford. “Most of the fastest growing jobs this decade will require education beyond high school. By supporting these NACME scholarships, we are supporting proven efforts that will provide students with the tools they need to prepare them for lifelong success.”
The SBC Foundation has provided NACME with funding for scholarships for more than 20 years, helping to open the pathways to engineering for talented minority engineering students. It is anticipated that the foundation’s contribution will enable more than 125 students at these universities this school year to help fulfill their dreams of becoming engineers.
“I am delighted that the SBC Foundation has come forward with this generous contribution,” said Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, NACME’s president and CEO. “We have found that one of the main reasons minority students have been unable to complete a course of study in engineering is because of a lack of financial resources. This grant will remove that obstacle for the NACME scholars at these universities.”
NACME is the nation’s largest private source of minority engineering scholarships For more than 30 years, with the support of corporate partners like the SBC Foundation, NACME has contributed more than $100 million in scholarship assistance to more than 18,000 minority students at more than 120 colleges and universities throughout the U.S. In the 2004-2005 school year, NACME increased the number of students receiving scholarships to 733, an increase of more than 40 percent over the previous year.
Since the mid-1990s, the retention-to-graduation rate of NACME scholars has exceeded 85 percent, which is more than twice the national retention average for minority engineering students nationwide and nearly twenty points higher than that of all engineering students.
In addition to its scholarship program, NACME has also participated in many other national efforts to build precollege math and science programs such as the Math is Power campaign and the GuideMeNACME.org website. NACME also publishes reliable and timely data and analysis of university performance in educating minority engineers and informs the public dialogue on affirmative action, financial aid, student admissions, and workplace climate.
For more information about NACME, please visit www.nacme.org.
