Bowie state university, through the effective and efficient management of its resources, provides high-quality and affordable educational opportunities at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels…

Bowie state university, through the effective and efficient management of its resources, provides high-quality and affordable educational opportunities at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels for a diverse student population of maryland citizens and the global community. The educational programs are designed to broaden the knowledge base and skill set of students across disciplines and to enable students to think critically, value diversity, become effective leaders, function competently in a highly technical world, and pursue advanced graduate study. The university is committed to increasing the number of students from underrepresented minorities who earn advanced degrees in computer science, mathematics, information technology, and education. Hence, bowie state university has made great strides, since 1995, focused upon the increase of minority students in the stem fields of study. The model institutions for excellence grant award, funded by NASA goddard in 1995, provided the incentive and funding to aggressively pursue students interested in stem fields. The primary focus was that of minority college level students where the enrollment of students in the various fields of stem was greatly increased, graduation, and retention also increased. Graduates have gone on to graduate and professional school and entering/entered the workforce in stem careers. Realizing that its outreach should be extended, several years later, the focus included students at the middle school level where the university received a grant from the exxonmobil and bernard harris foundations to host a summer science camp. Students were exposed to hands on activities in the areas of science (biological and physical science), mathematics, technology and robotics. Additionally, the campers were exposed to field excursions that were significantly related to the conceptual information they were obtaining. The camp was offered for three summers, receiving praise and numerous success stories following return of the campers to their home school. Follow-up workshops have been conducted to maintain contact with the campers for the purpose of providing continued motivation and to determine their academic progress at their respective schools. During the past three years the university, a recipient of a national science foundation MSP grant award, has expanded its focus to include students entering the tenth grade, and again, middle school students. The tenth graders make a commitment to three summers where upon they earn 8 credits of college level courses (biology and chemistry). The middle school students are exposed to a series of hands on exercises and related field excursions that were selected to provide practical and applicable knowledge of content information. This summer another component has been added to include ninth graders. Numerous requests have been made for the inclusion of ninth grade students since there are few programs in the area that include them in summer pre-college activities. IT is anticipated that the pre-college science scholars (tenth to twelfth graders) and the future stem scholars (middle and ninth graders) will be encouraged to continue their interest in stem and that the activities for which they are engaged will motivate their aspirations of pursuing stem careers.