The INSIDER - VOLUME 18 SPRING/SUMMER 2022

ENHANCING THE INTEGRATION OF STEM AND LIBERAL ARTS

Division of Natural and Computational Sciences Assistant Professor Sohel Quazi, PhD, aims to enhance and maximize the integration of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) throughout the Texas College campus, as well as across disciplines. To do so, Dr. Quazi will employ his recently awarded grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). With the approval of his proposal “Re - constructing the Campus Cyberinfrastructure of a Small, Liberal Arts HBCU in Order to Maximize STEM Innovation and Integration,” NSF has awarded Dr. Quazi a one - year grant in the amount $100,000, for which he will serve as the principal investigator. The main focus of the project will prove beneficial to the subject areas of computer information science and engineering. As institutions of higher learning return to normality, a paradigmatic shift that has occurred, thus little attention has been paid to the alterations and

modifications that may be needed in the Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC) of a small, private liberal arts college in order to maximize outcomes in the preparation of students for entry into, and excellence in performance, in STEM graduate and professional programs. Texas College will utilize the planning grant to complete an assessment of its current infrastructure in order to identify the elements needed to reconstruct the system to better accommodate the delivery of STEM and liberal arts subject matter, which allows for research in such a way that Texas College students can excel in STEM graduate programs. The broader impact of the grant will generate not merely information, but actual knowledge that can advance STEM achievement among the country’s 5,228 liberal arts colleges within the United States, including the ten liberal arts HBCUs. Accordingly, the planning grant will serve as a pathway for the greater preparation of liberal arts students at HBCUs and other liberal arts colleges beyond Texas College.

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