Deaton gives Chancellor's Report
Chancellor Brady Deaton spoke at the Board of Curators meeting Tuesday morning about MU’s part in advancement within science, technology, engineering and math courses.
“We need to know the strengths of our campuses in undertaking this challenge,” Deaton said.
Deaton said that STEM undergraduate enrollment has increased by 50 percent and graduate enrollment by about 45 percent. Undergraduate enrollment was about 14,000 in fall 2010. Almost 24,000 STEM students have graduated from the university and Deaton said he wants to further increase these numbers.
Deaton said by securing funds through various federal agencies to stimulate STEM courses and student involvement within major research courses, further growth will be possible.
“We want students to be involved in meaningful research of our institution and fortunately federal agencies as well as private collaborators have enabled us to undertake these efforts,” Deaton said.
Deaton commended the competitive nature of schools and programs on MU’s campus and the unique challenges they take on. One of these programs is MU’s Fellows Program, which works with biomedicine.
“Since the inception of this Fellow’s Program since 2007 Mizzou’s biodesign fellowship has led to the creation of three business, 23 invention disclosures, eight provisional patents and four pending patents,” Deaton said.
Deaton said the university would like to extended the efforts of strengthening STEM courses starting from kindergarten. He said it is possible to do this by creating more teachers and sponsoring programs that stimulate STEM programs.
One such program sponsored by the physics department offers courses to younger students to get them interested. Since it has been implemented more than 80 ninth grade teachers have reported increased student interest in STEM courses Deaton said.
A smart teacher recruitment program has also been implemented by MU. It looks at those qualified in the fields of math and science, but lack a teaching degree, and prepares them for classrooms. Since the program has started the graduating rates of math and science teachers has doubled and Deaton said the university hopes to double rates again in the next few years.