Harris-Stowe State University received a grant of $399,000 from Verizon, to bring the wireless company’s Innovative Learning program to St. Louis.
Starting this summer, the initiative will send minority middle-school boys to local college campuses for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. The two-year program introduces young male minority students to concepts like coding software, 3D printers and building presentation skills.
According to Megan Dorche of Verizon, Verizon’s new Innovative Learning Program started at four historically black universities and this year it kicks off at eight more. Harris-Stowe is one of 12 such schools in the nation that are a part of the program. Dorche says this type of involvement is aimed to take the students from being technology consumers to technology innovators.
Dean of Students Emmanuel Lalande is also involved with the Black Male Initiative at Harris Stowe. After Ferguson, he said, Harris-Stowe President Dwaun J. Warmack wanted make sure the initiative was involved with area students.
Since then, the initiative has been engaged with Griffith, Airport and Coca elementary schools, all in the Ferguson-Florissant School District. They have recently begun working with Riverview-Gardens High School being actively engaged with mentorship. Bringing the students onto campus and exposing them to college atmosphere.
“Not only was it important to expose students to them STEM fields,” says Lalande, but also to merge the program with mentorship and make sure they continue to be involved.” Lalande says that originally Verizon suggested they serve 50 students. “Verizon liked the idea so much they asked if we could do 100 students and we said ‘Yes, absolutely.’” HSSU is the only University to merge the Black Male Initiative with Verizon’s program.
Duane Warmack took over as president of Harris-Stowe State University in July 2014.”HSSU is the only HBCU in St. Louis and we graduate a large percentage of African American males in mathematics.” Says Warmack “HSU is ranked number 47 in the nation out of 3500 schools” . “So we at HSSU believe we have a niche when it comes to STEM. We want to reach these children early, in middle school and elementary school.” Warmack goes onto say that this program creates a great opportunity to get minority students to become exposed to STEM. Warmack says that he believes HSSU has a civic and moral responsibility to create programs for African American youth.
When the idea was first pitched there were five school districts involved including Normandy, Fergson-Florrissant, Riverview, Jennings, St. Louis Public Schools. Recently, additional school districts in the area have begun advocating to be part of the program. If they qualify–for example, if their demographics contain significant numbers of first-generation, low- income students within their boundaries–once accepted, they will be able to participate in 2016.
