News Releases 2008

LETU Receives $529,000 S-Stem Grant

Fri, Mar 14 2008

(LONGVIEW, Texas) – LeTourneau University recently won a $529,000 S-STEM grant from the National Science Foundation over the next five years to support scholarships for electrical engineering and computer science students. S-STEM stands for Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Principal investigators on the S-STEM grant are assistant professor of engineering Dr. Joonwan Kim and associate professor of computer science Dr. Craig Varnell.

Up to $460,000 of the grant is earmarked for scholarships designed to attract students in computer science and engineering and retain them through to graduation.  Beginning in the fall of 2009, the scholarship will become available. The scholarships will benefit those students with demonstrated academic ability, but also those who also qualify for financial aid.  Up to $21,000 is designated to support tutoring services in computer science, engineering and mathematics, to help with retaining students in these disciplines. The rest of the grant money will support administrative costs.

"This grant will enable us to increase our enrollment in these fields, especially attracting those academically talented students who have a financial need, which might otherwise preclude them from considering LeTourneau University," Varnell said.  "I hope these scholarships will attract more female and minority students to apply."