HANOVER — Dartmouth College launched a $100 million STEM-X program to increase diversity in science, technology, engineering and math with an event in San Francisco on Tuesday.
The effort aims to improve the success and leadership of historically underrepresented groups, such as people of color, women and first-generation students, in STEM fields and to prepare the next generation of scientists and leaders.
The program builds on the college’s previous initiatives such as a Women in Science program and the E.E. Just Program, which is named for a Dartmouth valedictorian who was a pioneering African-American cell biologist and seeks to increase the number of underrepresented minorities at Dartmouth pursuing degrees and careers in STEM disciplines, Dartmouth President Phil Hanlon said in a Tuesday phone interview from San Francisco.
“It’s very exciting,” Hanlon said. “I think it’s something that’s going to be really good for Dartmouth (and it’s) going to be really good for the world.”
The STEM-X program’s goals include “amplifying existing programs” and “giving them more resources,” Hanlon said.
The program seeks to better coordinate efforts at increasing diversity in STEM across Dartmouth, Alexis Abramson, dean of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, said in an interview from an airport in Seattle on Tuesday. Some of the work is in making students of different backgrounds feel more at home at Dartmouth.
Sometimes students come to Dartmouth with low confidence and “don’t feel a sense of belonging,” she said.
As a woman in engineering herself, Abramson said she felt at times that she didn’t belong in the field, such as while she was earning her doctorate in mechanical engineering at University of California, Berkeley.
“I’ve had those experiences personally,” she said. “We have a big world out there with lots of complex challenges that require engineers (…) engineers that have experience with liberal arts. Those are the STEM-trained people who are going to save the world. We need more of them.”
The college so far has $60 million in hand, including a $25 million gift from Dartmouth alumnus James Coulter and his wife, Penny. Other donors to the effort include Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, a 1981 Dartmouth graduate who is executive director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University, and her husband, John Donahoe, a 1982 Dartmouth graduate who is the CEO of Nike; Lou Gerstner, a 1963 Dartmouth graduate, a former chairman of the board and CEO of IBM; and Sally and Bill Neukom, a 1964 Dartmouth graduate and former general counsel for Microsoft.
Dartmouth is committed to raising another $40 million for the program, Hanlon said. The funds will be used to address student diversity in STEM programs, as well as for faculty recruitment, to boost first-generation student achievement and to spur scholarship at the intersection of computational science and law, according to the college’s online announcement.
The Coulters’ gift, which was announced on Tuesday, will bring together six programs across the arts and sciences, engineering and the medical school under a new executive director for undergraduate STEM diversity. The new director will create an alumni-student network for mentorship and networking.
The gift also will create the Coulter Scholars Program, a 16-member, four-year cohort to help develop the students’ potential in STEM disciplines and prepare them for the future. The program will support students academically, personally and professionally, and includes scholarships for those who qualify for financial aid. It’s not yet clear how the scholars will be selected, Madison Everts, an account director with the communication agency Racepoint Global, said Wednesday.
“To meet the challenges of tomorrow we need all the talent we can muster and teach,” Jim Coulter, co-founder of TPG, a global alternative asset management firm, and vice chair emeritus of Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees, said in a news release. “Dartmouth can do its part by embracing diversity as we recruit and educate future STEM leaders.”
The $100 million STEM-X program is part of the college’s $3.5 billion Call to Lead campaign that ends in June. The campaign includes more than $500 million in investments in the STEM-focused West End campus district, including expansions of computer science and engineering faculty; new centers for entrepreneurship and energy-related research; and more than 205,000 square feet of new facilities.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
