Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Receives 2021 “Inspiring Programs in STEM” Award
For the second consecutive year, Hudson Valley Community College’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI) is recipient of an “Inspiring Program in STEM” Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. The honor recognizes ODEI’s STEM Outreach Workshop Initiative, a free, online program that engages underrepresented students, including girls and those who identify as female, in introductory and intermediate programs in science, technology, engineering and math.
SOWI team leaders pictured with President Roger Ramsammy are (left to right) Ainsley Thomas, chief diversity officer; Taunya Hannibal-Williams, SOWI coordinator and ODEI’s community outreach specialist; Kayla Miller, technical assistant and SOWI STEM Is Elementary facilitator, and Mac-Arthur Louis, SOWI Robotics facilitator and an adjunct faculty member in the college’s Computer Science Department.
“Inspiring Programs in STEM” award-winning colleges and universities were selected for encouraging a new generation of young people to consider careers in STEM through mentoring, teaching, research and other projects, according to Lenore Pearlstein, owner/publisher. The 78 schools to receive 2021 awards will be highlighted in the September issue of INSIGHT Into Diversity, the nation’s oldest diversity and inclusion publication in higher education.
Hudson Valley’s STEM Outreach Workshop Initiative (SOWI) has grown significantly since it began in summer 2020 with a handful of computer programing workshops for middle and high school students focused on gaming, robotics and business applications. SOWI now serves two age groups: SOWI STEM is elementary, an Earth Science-based summer camp for fourth and fifth grades, and SOWI Robotics, a year-round workshop series for grades six through 12 that teaches computer languages (i.e. Python and Java), coding and robotics. The initiative also created a robotics team, SOWI ProCoders, that placed 14th in a recent online competition. A SUNY PRODiG (Promoting Recruitment, Opportunity, Diversity, Inclusion and Growth) grant helped create SOWI in 2020.
“SOWI grew by leaps and bounds in a time plagued by an ongoing pandemic, and we’re committed to reach even more underserved students in the coming year. Congratulations to the SOWI team members! Their dedication to this important work is exemplary and a model for other institutions of higher education,” Hudson Valley President Roger Ramsammy said.
Click here to view the September issue of INSIGHT Into Diversity.
ODEI is featured on page 46.
Published: Wed, 18 Aug 2021 12:00:37 +0000 by d.gardner