Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Nebraska Wesleyan University

The Science Teaching Institute is made possible through a $1.2 million grant that Nebraska Wesleyan University received in 1996 from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to enhance Wesleyan's Science programs. Fifty-two colleges and universities received a total of $45.4 million in four-year grants through HHMI's 1996 Undergraduate Biological Sciences Education Program, the largest private initiative in U.S. history to enhance undergraduate science education. Only seven of the 52 colleges or universities received more than the $1.2 million awarded to Wesleyan, which is also the only institution in Nebraska to receive a grant. One unique aspect of the HHMI grant is that Wesleyan has been able to use it as a multifaceted grant. The money has been used to improve research, facilities, and awareness in the areas of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math, Computer Science, and Education.

Wesleyan's program broke the grant down to help fund five different areas. The three major areas are student research and broadening access to science, equipment and laboratories, and precollege and outreach programs. Activities in the student research and broadening access to science are designed to provide general educatiion students with greater awareness of career alternatives in science and provide science students with greater opportunity for summer research fellowship. Some of the projects funded by the HHMI grant include the installation of microcomputers in chemistry and biology laboratories, installation of multimedia technology in two lecture halls, and the establishment of a new computer lab in Olin Hall of Science.