Overview

The Center for STEM Education, established in 1964 at the University of Southern Mississippi, has served almost 1500 graduate students in mathematics and science education. Our graduate degree programs currently serve 40 masters and doctoral level students. We stimulate, develop, and support interdisciplinary STEM education research initiatives both on and off campus. And we design and provide STEM Education outreach activities for the region. The Center for STEM Education serves three main missions: (1) ACADEMIC PROGRAMS: We offer STEM Education Certificate, Masters and Doctoral programs with content areas including mathematics, biology, chemistry, marine science, polymers, computer science, and more. Students may pursue research focused on any area of human development in STEM learning, in formal or informal settings, and at any level - Elementary, Secondary, Post-Secondary. Hybrid programming provided both in-person and online offers flexibility for our full-time and part-time students alike. We also develop and support undergraduate programs in secondary Science Education and provide courses in Environmental Sciences for over 500 students annually. (2) RESEARCH: Alongside our service to graduate students, we design and develop research programs and grant proposals for our students to participate and learn about STEM education research methods and design. We also support interdisciplinary STEM education research programs across the university by way of partnership, collaboration, evaluation support, and consulting with faculty members across the university. (3) OUTREACH: We design and implement STEM outreach programs across the region both on and off campus. These include the State and Regional Science Fairs for Regions I and VI, Hackathons, STEM Invitationals, Lunch-and-Learn Speaker Series, VEX robotics competitions, and more. We have full time graduate students and also serve many working educators in K12 and higher education as part time students.