NMSI Announces Commitment to Bolster STEM Education at White House Event

Today, NMSI’s Chief Academic Officer Gregg Fleisher will join President Obama, the First Lady, and Vice President Biden along with hundreds of college presidents and other higher education leaders to announce new actions to help more students prepare for and graduate from college as part of the White House College Opportunity Day of Action.
 

 
Participants of today’s event were asked to commit to new action in one of four areas: building networks of colleges around promoting completion, creating K-16 partnerships around college readiness, investing in high school counselors as part of the First Lady’s Reach Higher initiative, and increasing the number of college graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
 
NMSI believes that every student should have access to the rigorous education and qualified teachers they needs to succeed in college and careers and is committed to strengthening the nation’s pipeline of STEM-proficient students and teachers.

Over the next five years, NMSI expects to expand its College Readiness Program—which dramatically boosts student performance in rigorous math, science and English coursework, particularly among traditionally underrepresented groups—to 250 new high schools, which will impact some 375,000 students.
 
In addition, to grow the cadre of qualified secondary math and science teachers needed to support our students, NMSI’s UTeach Expansion Program—in partnership with the UTeach Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, and with funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute—is supporting extension of the UTeach STEM teacher preparation model to five research universities in 2015. Onboarding of these additional universities, announced earlier this week, will expand the UTeach footprint to 44 universities across 21 states and the District of Columbia.  Collectively, the UTeach programs at these schools are expected to produce 8,300 math and science teachers who will teach a projected 4.8 million secondary STEM students by 2020.

“Through its partnerships with schools and universities across the country, NMSI is impacting students and teachers in the classrooms of today, while strengthening the corpus of STEM professionals needed to educate and inspire future generations,” said Fleisher.

The White House College Opportunity Day of Action helps to support the President’s commitment to partner with colleges and universities, business leaders, and nonprofits to support students across the country to help our nation reach its goal of leading the world in college attainment. Expanding opportunity for more students to enroll and succeed in college, especially low-income and underrepresented students, is vital to building a strong economy and ensuring our competitiveness in today’s global economy.
 
Today’s event is the second College Opportunity Day of Action, and will include a progress report on the commitments made at the first day of action on January 14, 2014.