The Indiana Commission for Higher Education (ICHE) announced this week that it has awarded STEM Teacher Grant funding to support the Hoosier STEM Academy program, a partnership among Ball State University, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis and Purdue University.
ICHE granted over $9.6 million to organizations and colleges to support programs that recruit, prepare, place, and retain educators in schools with teacher shortages in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subject areas. The Hoosier STEM Academy was one of 16 programs and organizations to be awarded grant funding from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.
“We are grateful to the Commission for Higher Education for the opportunity to continue to provide needed coursework, programing, and services to support STEM growth in underserved communities,” said Kizmin Jones, director of the Hoosier STEM Academy. “This grant will give STEM educators the support needed to continue to serve their students well.”
The goal of the Hoosier STEM Academy program is to address the teacher shortage in Indiana in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math by focusing on recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers to work in underserved communities across the state. The program provides funding for teachers to complete necessary coursework to earn an initial secondary teaching license, teach dual credit STEM courses, and extend elementary mathematics content knowledge.
The STEM Teacher Recruitment Fund was created by the General Assembly in 2013. It has supported over 2,000 current and new STEM educators throughout Indiana. This is the Hoosier STEM Academy’s third round of grant funding.