Seventeen years of partnering with HBCUs, and still growing Since 2009, MN Associates has had the privilege of serving as an external evaluator for STEM programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This year we are adding three new evaluations to that portfolio, and I wanted to take a moment to share what these programs are and why this work matters to us. The National Science Foundation's HBCU Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) supports HBCUs in strengthening undergraduate STEM …
NSF SSTEM and MNA
One area of STEM education that has been especially meaningful to MN Associates, Inc. (MNA) is our work with NSF S-STEM (Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). NSF S-STEM supports academically talented, low-income scholars pursuing STEM degrees through scholarships and additional academic, career, mentoring, and other supports designed to help scholars persist and move toward STEM careers. To date, MNA has had the opportunity to provide …
New S-STEM awards, new partnerships, and a big week ahead in DC!
🎉 MN Associates, Inc. (MNA) is delighted to share that we will serve as an external evaluator for four newly funded NSF S-STEM projects: Wofford College (South Carolina) North Carolina A&T State University (North Carolina) West Chester University of Pennsylvania: S-STEM PI mentoring program Meharry Medical College (Tennessee): S-STEM planning grant Congratulations to each project team! We are proud to have collaborated with all four institutions during the pre-award phase, helping shape …
Five Years, Real Gains: Closing Out Mesa Community College’s HSI-STEM Evaluation
Five years ago, Mesa Community College, AZ set out to change what the path into STEM looks like for Hispanic and low-income students. This month, MN Associates is wrapping up our work as the external evaluator for MCC's HSI-STEM Guided Pathways Enhancement Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education (2021 to 2026). Some results from the Year 5 summative evaluation: 📈 First-year STEM retention reached 60.8%, the highest of the grant and above its 55% target. 🎓 9% of students …
MNA Completes The Final Evaluation of TechMAP Program For Montgomery College
Four years, 1,322 learners, and a lot to be proud of. MN Associates, Inc. (MNA) has completed the final evaluation of the TechMAP Program (Tech Metro Area Pathways) at Montgomery College (MD), funded by the U.S. Department of Labor's Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants Program, Round 2 (SCC2). TechMAP set out to build accelerated, no-cost IT career pathways for underemployed and underrepresented adults in the greater Washington, D.C. region. Over the grant period, the …
Beyond “Did It Work?”: A New Approach to S-STEM Evaluation
🎉 It's here, six days ahead of schedule!🎈 📄 "Responsive Evaluation Design (RED): A Framework for Evaluating NSF S-STEM Projects" is now live through the AAAS CSEW (Center for STEMM Education & Workforce) S-STEM Resource and Evaluation Center, funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF)! ✍️ We wrote this for anyone who designs, implements, funds, or evaluates #SSTEM projects: PIs, evaluators, and program officers alike. The white paper walks through RED's core principles, …
When Context Matters: Rethinking Evaluation in S-STEM. A New White Paper Dropping Soon!
📣 Something we've been building at MNA is about to go public… soon! For the past few months, we’ve been working with AAAS CSEW (Center for STEMM Education & Workforce), the S-STEM Resource and Evaluation Center on a white paper about how we evaluate NSF S-STEM projects, the ones that support low-income, academically talented students pursuing STEM degrees. 🔍 The white paper makes a case for Responsive Evaluation Design (RED), an approach that treats context as central rather than as …
Building the DoW’s Next STEM Workforce, One Robot at a Time
Three years. 19 partner sites. A workforce pipeline that is already paying off. We're proud to share the results of the RoboMasterminds Three-Year Summative Impact Report, closing out this Department of Defense-funded STEM pipeline program supported by the National Defense Education Program (NDEP) in partnership with DEVCOM ARL and NSWC Indian Head Division. The reach speaks for itself. Partner sites grew from 5 to 19, and students served grew from 233 to 880 or more in a single grant …
Advancing STEM Through Community Engagement, Co-Design, Hands-on Learning, and Synthetic Biology
Some projects are simply exciting to watch unfold. Synthetic Biology and Me is one of them. This NSF-funded Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) project brings together community engagement, co-design, hands-on learning, and synthetic biology in ways that make science feel accessible, creative, and deeply connected to people's everyday lives. Over the past year, youth and families in Baltimore and El Paso explored synthetic biology through hands-on activities ranging from Microbe Art and …
Twelve Grants In: What RARE in STEM Taught Us About Building STEM Teachers
Five years. Twenty-three Scholars. One mission that keeps going. This year marks the conclusion of RARE in STEM, an NSF-funded Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program grant at George Mason University. What began in 2021 as an ambitious idea and weathered a genuinely rocky start grew into a thriving community of STEM educators headed into classrooms that need them most. Along the way: 23 Scholars supported, a formalized partnership between our College of Science and College of Education …