Daily Pioneer News

PLATTEVILLE - Committed to diversity in higher education, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville is part of an alliance of 21 state colleges and universities that aims to boost the number of underrepresented minorities who receive bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines. The Wisconsin Alliance for Minority Participation (WiscAMP) recently received a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Partnerships (LSAMP) program. The alliance includes all 13 UW System four-year universities, Alverno College, Beloit College, Lawrence University, Marquette University, Madison Area Technical College, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Nicolet Area Technical College and the College of the Menominee Nation.

UW-Madison will administer a small-grants program which will enable WiscAMP partner institutions to submit proposals for annual funds ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 to support WiscAMP objectives at their institutions. Christina Curras, UW-Platteville assistant professor of civil engineering, said she and UWP Multicultural Resource Education Center director Carlos Wiley will attend a meeting at UW-Madison in November in which details of the small-grant program will be determined.

The grants will be a boon for Plan 2008, a UW System-wide effort to reduce disparities in educational outcomes and increase retention and graduation rates of minority students.

"The WiscAMP grant will help us achieve that goal for our campus and will allow us to collaborate with other Wisconsin colleges and universities to achieve that goal across the state," UW-Madison Provost Peter Spear said.

The total number of underrepresented minority students who received bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering and math from the four-year alliance institutions in the 2001-2002 school year was only 124, said Douglass Henderson, a UW-Madison professor of engineering physics, associate dean for engineering diversity affairs, and the initiative's co-director.

"This is low," Henderson said. "Our goal is to try to double that number in the five-year period. The state is losing out by not tapping into this human potential."

LSAMP is one of NSF's flagship programs and is conducted with full congressional approval and authorization, A. James Hicks, LSAMP program director, said.

"Diversity is a part of America's strength," he said. "And if America is to remain preeminent in the STEM fields, it must make use of its diversity."

Contact: Christina Curras, assistant professor, UW-Platteville Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 608-342-1541, currasc@uwplatt.edu; or Douglass Henderson, associate dean of diversity affairs, UW-Madison College of Engineering, 608-263-0808, henderson@engr.wisc.edu

Prepared by: Renee Meiller, University of Wisconsin-Madison Engineering External Relations, 608-262-2481, meiller@engr.wisc.edu; and Dan Lehnherr, UW-Platteville Public Relations, 608-342-1194, lehnherd@uwplatt.edu