Ohio Northern University has received a substantial grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund scholarships for students in the third and fourth years of the University’s engineering education and math education programs.

The five-year grant, which began May 1, is initially for $777,000 and is expected to eventually total approximately $1.2 million. The funding source is the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program.

The first two-year scholarships will be awarded to current ONU students in the fall of the 2018-19 academic year. Students earning the scholarships will then fulfill a two-year commitment for every year of scholarship they receive, upon graduation, to teach in a school district in the United States that that meets one of the following criteria: a high percentage of students from families with incomes below the poverty line, a higher percentage of secondary school teachers not teaching in the content area in which they were trained, or a high teacher-turnover rate.
 
A goal is to fund an average of eight students per year during the course of the five-year program.
 
The average scholarship award will be $20,000 per student per year, based on the students’ financial needs, and the minimum amount will be $10,000. The scholarships funded by the NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program are in addition to scholarships the students may have already earned from ONU, the Choose Ohio First grants and the federal TEACH Grant. The goal is to offer selected ONU students a financial package that fully supports their final two years of college.
 
Students will be selected based on their commitment and potential to successfully enter the teaching profession. Criteria include being a math education or engineering education major, achieving a minimum grade-point average of 2.5, and demonstrating a commitment to teaching through activities such as participation in educational outreach events or other experiential learning activities offered by ONU.

The project, “Ohio Excels: Preparing highly qualified educators through the integration of engineering and mathematics,” was designed and submitted by ONU faculty members Todd France, Adrienne Goss, Tena L. Roepke and Thomas Zechman. France is an engineering education faculty member; Goss, an education faculty member; Roepke, a mathematics faculty member; and Zechman, a civil engineering faculty member.