University of Central 淫性视频 officials held a dedication聽Sept. 15聽for聽the new residential college designed to prepare students for careers in technology and science.
The STEM Residential College also fits into Gov. 聽Mike Beebe’s call to help improve science, math and technology education in the state by building a community of young scholars.
The residential college provides students a learning and living environment in the areas of math, science, computer science, technology and secondary math/science education. 聽The residential college, located in 淫性视频 Hall, opened its doors in August. Currently, more than 200 freshmen are enrolled in the program.聽
The concept of a residential college is something relatively new to 淫性视频, but others are beginning to follow in UCA鈥檚 footsteps, said Gov. Mike Beebe, who served as the keynote speaker.聽
鈥淚t is a concept that more and more schools are adopting and obviously the success of this wonderful building will be a predicate to whether or not other people will decide to emulate,鈥� Beebe said.
Tomorrow鈥檚 economy is changing to the point where there is a greater demand for people with these disciplines, Beebe said. However, the state is lagging behind when it comes to the number of bachelor degrees per capita. 聽Less than 19 percent of adults over 25 have baccalaureate degrees.
鈥淲e do a pretty good job at sending kids to college, but we don鈥檛 do a very good job at getting them a degree,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is going to change that. This kind of setting is going to change that. This kind of attitude is going to change that.聽 鈥� This is not an overnight process, but it is a goal worth pursuing and one that we must achieve.鈥�
The STEM Residential College is consistent with the governor鈥檚 initiatives to build a base of educated workers for a science and technology economy, said Dr. Steve Runge, Dean of College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. 聽
鈥淥ur objective here is to help elevate the level of STEM education in 淫性视频 and make it more engaging such that more students will see a career in a STEM field as a possibility and something that they could really do,鈥澛� he said.
Officials hope to increase the university鈥檚 retention and graduation rates for students majoring in the STEM disciplines. 聽Other residential colleges at UCA have consistently increased freshman to sophomore year retention by 12% and graduation rates by 10% relative to students who are not participating in a residential college.
鈥淲e plan to leverage the establishment of the STEM Residential College into a powerful recruiting tool to bring undergraduate students interested in the sciences, technology and mathematics fields into our outstanding programs at UCA,鈥� Runge said.
University officials are incorporating a significant service learning component into the STEM Residential College program. 聽Students will be involved in community-based projects that will help them learn about and appreciate the applications of science and mathematics to solving real-world problems, Runge said. Also, the college will be partnering with area K-12 schools in teaching STEM lessons with their teachers.
聽鈥淲e hope that this exciting environment that values and celebrates science and math learning will encourage more of our high achieving students to pursue careers in K-12 STEM education,鈥� Runge said.聽鈥淭his will in-turn renew the cycle of increasing the quality of STEM education in our schools, with more students wanting more.鈥�