Marist Receives $1.48 Million NSF Grant

Marist College Provides Opportunities for Science Students with Financial Needs

Neil Fitzgerald, Associate Dean of the School of Sciences.

Marist College has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for $1,480,254 to support science students with financial needs.

“There is a concern that we’re losing talent nationwide because of the lack of diversity,” said Associate Dean of the School of Sciences Neil Fitzgerald. “It benefits all of us not to have everyone thinking the same way and having the same background,” he added about the importance of low-income students in STEM fields.

Fitzgerald and Alicia Slater, the Dean of the School of Sciences, worked together to create a program to combat this concern at Marist. 

This six-year program will cover the financial needs of 23 full-time students from low-income backgrounds studying biology, biochemistry, chemistry, or environmental science.

“[The program] is for students who might not necessarily be able to afford to come to Marist,” said Fitzgerald.  

However, the program does not only provide scholarships for the students. “A sense of belonging is important,” Fitzgerald said. “We want to support them.” A significant aspect of the program is the community it creates for the students. 

The 23 students will live together and be given an introductory course over the summer to familiarize them with Marist College and the resources it provides. The students will have dedicated faculty advisors supporting them through their studies as well. There will also be academic support provided to students. Peer tutors will work with professors and sit in on the classes to provide students with effective support. 

“We hope that a lot of these kinds of support services continue and will improve the success of all our students,” said Fitzgerald. 

Although Marist may not be able to provide this scholarship again, the services it creates will support all science students studying at Marist. Fitzgerald noted that students often struggle with introductory science courses, and the pressure can be daunting. 

“We don’t want to see people leaving,” he said. Fitzgerald hopes that the academic resources provided by the grant will decrease the number of students that will switch majors due to the difficulty of the courses. 

Applying for a grant of this size is a complex process. “It’s been at least a couple of years since we first started thinking about it,” Fitzgerald said. 

There have been many revisions to the program and budget, but the hard work has finally paid off. “It’s a big group process; it’s a team,” Fitzgerald emphasizes. Support services on campus and faculty and staff in all fields of science have worked together to make this program possible.

“We’ve all come together to commit to trying to do something that will have a significant long-term impact on all science students.”