SUNY Oswego, in partnership with Monroe Community College (MCC), recently received a federal grant to support study-abroad opportunities connected to the massive economic impact of Micron Technologies building in Central New York.
The grant from the U.S. Department of State’s Increase and Diversify Education Abroad for U.S. Students (IDEAS) Program supports efforts to establish, expand and/or broaden American student mobility overseas. The project’s title is “Getting Ready for Micron: How a Rural-Serving Public Regional University and an Urban Community College in Upstate New York Will Prepare Students for Opportunities in the Global Semiconductor Industry.”
In support of the bipartisan 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, two consortium grants of $50,000 each were awarded to U.S. higher education institutions collaborating to build study-abroad capacity, programs, and resources to prepare U.S. students for careers in STEM, technical and/or vocational fields.
“The U.S. State Department’s IDEAS grant program seeks to challenge institutions of higher education to innovate and expand the definition of what they mean by education abroad,” said Joshua McKeown, SUNY Oswego’s associate provost for international education and programs.
“Even for a university like ours, where we have been successful at offering exceptional study-abroad opportunities for a long time, we are challenged to think differently, particularly in the Micron era we are now in,” McKeown noted. “Not every major has been represented well in our international programs, and not every destination has either. Focusing on STEM fields and developing targeted programs to East Asia, disciplines and relationships that SUNY Oswego has but not necessarily harnessed for this purpose, was challenging to conceive of and build support around. It’s really an affirmation of so much that we have built, and I am enormously gratified that this came through for us and we can put our international expertise to work in this way.”
