By Staff writer
The National Science Foundation has awarded Hofstra University $898,976 for The Noyce Scholarship Program. The program will provide $20,000 grants to 16 students, particularly those from underrepresented groups entering the Secondary Mathematics Teaching Program. After graduation the recipients will be required to teach mathematics in a high needs middle school or high school for two years for each year they received the scholarship.
Students eligible for this scholarship are undergraduates of sophomore standing who are mathematics majors at Hofstra or who are in their final year at community colleges, particularly Nassau and Queensboro.
Those who collaborated in applying to the NSF for the grant-based scholarship include Dr. Blidi S. Stemn of the School of Education, Health and Human Serivces and Dr. Behailu Mammo of Hofstra College Arts and Sciences.
The application process will begin in January 2010. The program will be publicized at NCC, Queens College, and on the Hofstra Portal. The application will be available beginning in January on Hofstra's web page. Eight students will be chosen this year and another eight next year. Students will be notified beginning in March if they are awarded the Scholarship, and a seminar will be held in the summer session to orient the students to the program.
Hofstra created a partnership with the Hempstead, Uniondale, Brentwood, and Westbury school systems so that graduates may teach at the schools in these local districts, but they also have the option to teach at schools across the country because The Noyce Scholarship Fund is a national program.
On the Secondary Mathematics Program at Hofstra, Dr. Stemn said, "We have a great Secondary Mathematics Program in the School of Education. With this grant we hope to bring more students and further support them with rigorous enrichment activities in addition to what they already get from the math program."
The Noyce Scholarship Program was created by the National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 2002 passed by the 2 session 107 Congress. The act states the purpose of the program is to "award grants to institutions of higher education and establish centers for education improvement… to be applied in elementary school and secondary school classrooms to improve the teaching of mathematics and science."
The logo for the National Science Foundation. (Photo courtesy of nsf.gov)