STEM NOLA receives nearly $3M DOD grant

New Orleans-based STEM NOLA, an educational enrichment program that focuses on bolstering educational achievement in science, technology, engineering and math, has received a $2.79 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to expand its educational workshops and access across the Gulf South, to help serve military-connected families.

STEM NOLA’s largest grant to date, the award comes as part of the highly competitive National Defense Education Program Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) awards.

“We are exceedingly grateful and incredibly proud to partner with the U.S. Department of Defense in addressing some of the most urgent educational needs among military families and underrepresented communities,” says STEM NOLA CEO Calvin Mackie, who is an award-winning educator and inventor. “This grant is life-changing. It will continue the great momentum we’ve created this year by immediately shifting our STEM programs and after-school activities to a virtual platform.”

According to a press release sent out by STEM NOLA, “the multimillion dollar grant will help to strengthen STEM NOLA’s innovative STEM ecosystem created to build confidence, skills and performance in STEM-related subjects and fields such as the power of wind, friction, rockets and robotics.”

The organization says this grant will help it to continue “engaging, inspiring and empowering young people and students of color through STEM-activities” and will also bring awareness to those students of STEM career opportunities with the Dept. of Defense.

This year, through its STEM awards program, the Dept. of Defense has granted 12 awards, and the recipients include K-12 and higher education organizations, nonprofits such as STEM NOLA, and some others within industry. The awards total $31 million over a three-year period.

“The Department of Defense is proud to support the STEM workforce our Nation needs to maintain our technological superiority far into the future,” said Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Kratsios, in a press release.

The Dept. of Defense said that the activities stemming from the grants will support its STEM strategic plan and align with the 2018 Federal STEM strategic plan. Some of those efforts will also include collaborative work with the department’s laboratories and military installations across the U.S.

The other recipients of this year’s grant include Alabama A&M University (Huntsville, Ala.); Cook Inlet Tribal Council Inc. (Anchorage, Alaska); Goshen Education Consulting Inc. (Edwardsville, Ill.); Hillsborough County Public School District (Tampa, Fla.); RTI International (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina); Trident Technical College (Charleston, S.C.); University of Illinois, Chicago; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, Ill.); University of Southern California (Los Angeles, Calif.); University of Toledo (Ohio); and Virginia Polytechnic (VT) Institute and State University (Blacksburg, Va.).

“We are particularly pleased with the range of initiatives pursued by this year’s awardees, with programs for early childhood education, post-secondary study, and outreach to student veterans. This investment will be critical to expanding STEM opportunities to students, educators, and veterans in underserved, underrepresented, and military-connected communities,” Kratsios said.

This article originally published in the October 12, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.