The Seattle Foundation’s Board of Trustees recently approved a grant of $25,000 to support the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity (OMA&D) Educational Opportunity Program. The grant is paid from the Bladin and Lou Family Advised Fund, Helen G. Van Waters Fund, Helen Mae Hostetter Foundation, Rodney S. and Caroline A. White Fund, and The Seattle Foundation Education and Learning Fund.
The Seattle Foundation Grant will be used to expand tutoring programs that support students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) majors within the OMA&D’s award winning Instructional Center and will focus particularly on helping first generation students succeed. The grant will complement a host of existing programs in the OMA&D, most notably the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, a National Science Foundation funded grant program focused on increasing the number of degrees earned by underrepresented minority students in STEM majors.
Since 1968, the OMA&D has served underrepresented minority, first generation and economically disadvantaged students at the UW. The percentage of students of color enrolled at UW has increased from 4 percent in 1968 to 30 percent in 2007. Today at the University of Washington and around the state, OMA&D student programs serve: 10,000 middle and high school students as they prepare and plan for college, through collaboration with local school districts and community partners throughout Washington state; Over 4,200 undergraduate students with new student orientation, academic advising, instructional support, mentoring and financial aid and scholarship needs through the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP); and more than 200 students as they prepare for, apply to, and succeed in graduate and professional programs.
Of the 4,212 undergraduate students served by EOP in 2008, 1,533 were first generation. Among OMA&D’s several student service divisions are EOP Counseling and Advising and the Instructional Center (IC). The two divisions provide assistance with student orientation, academic advising, financial aid and housing, and personal counseling, and through the IC, a host of academic tutoring programs. The IC served 1,417 students in 2008, 622 of which were first generation.