Our Crowdfunding Groups
THANK YOU! We reached our first $5,000 goal!
*** We have a new stretch goal of $10,000!***
Lloyd and Christine Bakan have generously offered to match each gift up to $10,000 so if you give during this campaign, your gift is DOUBLED, maximizing its mpact to undergraduate STEM students now.
Please continue to share this project with your networks. With your help we'll reach our new stretch goal soon!
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Join us in shaping a future where diversity thrives. Your support fuels this transformation by fostering new talent and ensuring a representative science and healthcare workforce. Together, we can create a brighter, healthier, and more innovative world.
Established in 1992, the Biology Scholars Program expands access to the sciences for undergraduates from historically underserved communities by providing a pathway to overcome barriers, support through mentorship, and creating an inclusive environment where students feel they belong as each of them embark on their academic and professional careers.
Critical to this mission, BSP tutoring and study groups form the basis of creating community for BSP members. Study groups provide students with academic and social support to persist beyond notorious "weeder" science courses to achieve their full potential.
BSP alumni are serving in medically under resourced communities and crating their own outreach programs. They are founding initiatives to address community health gaps. They are using their lived experience to evolve the conversation around mental health. They are changing the world.
Post-COVID Challenges and Opportunities
The words most often used by members to describe the value of BSP to them are 'family' and 'community.' We saw evidence of this in their increased levels of participation in the program activities during the pandemic as compared to pre-COVID levels. This bump in participation was across the board, in program tutoring, mentoring, advising, internships, and professional development workshops, underscoring the importance of providing a community of support, trust, and kindness for our members.
With the onset of COVID, BSP activities went 100% online, including tutoring. As students returned to campus and we have transitioned back to in-person program delivery, we find that our students are still struggling to recover from the academic, social, and emotional trauma of COVID.
Within this context, BSP is innovating ways to revamp our services to meet the 'new normal' in the wake of unprecedented change and uncertainty.
Today, we need your support as we critically re-envision and re-imagine the design and delivery of BSP's programs and activities, most especially our tutoring and study groups, building on the new practices developed during COVID to meet new student needs.
During this crowdfunding campaign, your collective gift will help to sustain the delivery of critical support to undergraduate students.
This gift shows your support to make STEM education more equitable for all students.
BSP students face food insecurity and a gift of $50 will help to stock the BSP student room with nutritious food during the semester.
$100 covers the cost of one tutor for one week. BSP tutoring has been shown to increase retention in STEM majors and lay the groundwork for future careers in science and healthcare professions.
$500 will cover supplies to train a new cohort of BSP tutors covering 9 lower division classes. This is an investment in the future of BSP study groups and academic support for undergraduate students.
