ACESS STEM Scholarships

ACESS STEM Scholarships - 2014

ACESS will be awarding two $1500 STEM Scholarships in 2014. This webpage describes the details of the scholarships and the nomination procedure. It also tries to answer some questions that you may have.

ACESS is the acronym for the Akron Council of Engineering and Scientific Societies. To learn more about ACESS click here to visit it's website.
STEM is an acronym for the Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics fields. Many employers trying to hire college graduates complain that they can't find enough graduates who majored in a STEM field. Since there is a strong demand for these graduates, ACESS awards a number of STEM Scholarships each year to encourage more students to major in these fields.
How many STEM Scholarships will ACESS award in 2014? One scholarship will be awarded to a student at The University of Akron and another scholarship will be awarded to a student at Kent State University.
How are the awardees of these scholarships selected? Members of the university faculty nominate upperclassmen majoring in STEM fields for these scholarships by sending e-mails to scholarships@acessinc.org on or before March 31, 2014 (the first day after Spring Break.) After that date, the ACESS Education Committee will review all the e-mails to select the awardees.
Faculty members should be aware that FERPA grants students certain privacy rights to their data, so they should get the nominee's permission before mentioning sensitive items like the GPA, course grades, etc. To comply with FERPA, the ACESS Education Committee will delete all nomination data after it has determined the scholarship awardees.
Faculty nominations can be spread across multiple e-mails as long as the Subject Line of each e-mail shows the name of the nominee. Letters of support from multiple faculty members and other items such as relevant newspaper articles can be attached to these e-mails.
The Body of the first e-mail should show the name of the nominee, his/her major, expected graduation date, student ID number, e-mail address, and local phone number.
Who can be nominated for an ACESS STEM Scholarship? Nominees must be students majoring in a STEM field who are expected to be Juniors or Seniors during the Fall 2014 semester. Students expected to graduate with their Bachelor degrees before the Fall 2014 semester can't be nominated. Students that are in the second half of their Sophomore year during the Spring 2014 semester can be nominated since we can expect that they will be Juniors during the Fall 2014 semester.
Can a nominee add his/her own statement? Yes, as long as it is sent to scholarships@acessinc.org on or before March 31, 2014 with his/her own name in the Subject Line. Click here for suggestions of what a nominee might want to include in his/her own statement.
How will an awardee receive the STEM Scholarship? In the summer of 2014, ACESS will send $1500 to the university bursar to be credited toward the awardee's account. An awardee can apply all of the scholarship toward his/her Fall 2014 semester tuition or spread parts of it out across a number of semesters until graduating with a Bachelor's degree.
Send e-mail to kennethe.batcher@gmail.com if you have any questions.

K. E. Batcher, Chair of the ACESS Education Committee - 1/18/2014.