County grants loan for STEM center.
Classes on coding and STEM-related job training will also be offered on the site.
The STEM hub is a partnership between the Mannie Jackson Center for the Humanities, the SIUE Center for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and the Madison County Housing Authority.
The STEM hub will be reaching out to all schools in Madison County with the primary focus this year of Madison, Venice, Granite City and Alton.
Dr. Ed Hightower, the executive director of the MJCH, has said that MJCH has a moral obligation to “foster positive interaction of youth through STEM and other educational opportunities.” Their focus, he said in a recent news release from SIUE, is “inclusiveness of youth of different cultures, races and ethnicities.
Many of the youth serve in public low-income housing developments and live at or below the poverty level, with limited access to healthy STEM opportunities.” Nearly 80 percent of Madison County Housing Authority family apartments have female heads of households, according to Andy Hightower, executive director of the MCHA.
“In an effort to decrease this percentage, we have developed programs that target young females,” Andy Hightower said in the SIUE news release.
“We feel that if the MCHA can provide young females with the tools and skills necessary to become successful women, it will have a positive impact on the community as a whole.” At the start of Wednesday’s County Board meeting, members recognized the Edwardsville High School boys’ track and field team, which recently won the IHSA 3A state championship.
They also recognized the EHS Journalism team.
The team tied for first place at the IHSA State Journalism competition on April 28 at Eastern Illinois University.