In June and July, the College of Science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) a part of the University of Alabama System, hosted two weeks of activities in support of the 2024 CAP & GOWN Project STEM Summer Institute. The free outreach program is designed to help students in grades 9-12 prepare for their college experience and includes ACT prep classes, tours and research events as well as hands-on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) projects. The program also provides future career connections for the participants, with the week of July 8-12 capping the final week of activities.
“CAP & GOWN has held these summer camps as a way of preparing these students for the ACT as well as college readiness,” explains Jennifer Bradley, director of advising for the College of Science. “We also partnered with and toured the College of Nursing, the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as the departments of physics and biology for presentations, experiments and numerous other activities.”
Bradley has been volunteering for four years with CAP & GOWN, which stands for “Create Academic Pathways and Guide Others Wherever Needed,” a local organization that "seeks to provide transformative opportunities for underrepresented secondary school students in Huntsville who wish to attend college.” As part of her work with the project, Bradley teaches College 101 after hours to about 30 high school students. Beginning as a course to guide students through the college application process from start to finish, College 101 has now blossomed into the STEM Summer Institute, a summer camp “that has grown into providing not only ACT prep, but giving students a taste of what it is like to be on a college campus,” Bradley says.
“This year's edition of the STEM Summer Institute on the UAH campus is by far their largest edition,” says Dean of the UAH College of Science, Rainer Steinwandt. “It’s more than twice the size of prior editions.”
For this year’s two sessions on campus, the students took part in ACT prep in the mornings, followed by interactive tours with UAH professors in the afternoon. Events included tours of the campus, the College of Nursing building, the UAH optics facilities, a biology lab and the UAH Severe Weather Institute and Radar & Lightning Laboratories (SWIRLL), as well as physics experiments and presentations by guest speakers from the around the community.
“Most of these students are first-generation college students, and this in-depth time on UAH's campus will inspire them to attend college and feel that they belong wherever they go,” Bradley notes.
