STEM students who are interested in teaching have a unique opportunity at Rhodes through the Noyce Program, which offers STEM students scholarships for their junior and senior years, as well as their student teaching semester. The value of the scholarship is $37,500 ($15,000 for each of two years plus $7,500 for the teaching semester). In accepting the Noyce scholarship, students agree to teach two years for each year of funding received at a high-needs school, for a total of five years after completing the program.
Applications should be saved as a PDF and emailed to Dr. Zac Casey or Dr. Jonathan Fitz Gerald.
Additional Monetary Support for Noyce Scholars
Noyce Scholars will receive funding to work 10 hours per week with a faculty member in their lab (or off-campus research, e.g., St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or another partner) in their junior and senior years. Each scholar will have funding to attend one professional conference in either their junior or senior year. They will also be paid for one summer research experience (either as a rising junior or senior) and receive free housing on campus for that summer. After completing the program, each scholar will have a grant to work with a Rhodes STEM faculty member to help them purchase supplies for their own classrooms. Finally, all testing fees associated with certification will be covered.
STEM Faculty Involvement
Each Noyce Scholar is mentored by a STEM faculty member at Rhodes.
Programming
We will facilitate “STEM 101,” a workshop that takes place in a local school featuring hands-on, inquiry-based lessons and activities with P-12 students and the Noyce Scholars. We will also have responsibility for “STEM Week” as part of the Urban Education Summer Institute, which takes place every June and July. That week will feature professional development opportunities on campus. We will also bring in guest speakers whose work focuses on STEM education and social justice.
Research
The overarching research question central to this project is about what happens when we combine intensive lab-based STEM training with our culturally relevant approach to urban teacher education. We have contracted with Brockport Research Institute to provide formative and summative evaluations of the project. They will be monitoring completer data as well as conducting surveys and phone interviews with the Noyce Scholars. Their work will form the basis for our data collection.
This project is supported by NSF award #1852661.