CHICAGO STATE UNIVERSITY’S PREP PROGRAM WINS $10,000 GRANT

Chicago State University’s Pre-Freshman Program in Engineering and Science (PREP) won second place and a $10,000 grant for the 2021 Ford Gives Back Freedom Award from the Ford Motor Company Fund. Photo courtesy of Chicago State University
Chicago State University’s Pre-Freshman Program in Engineering and Science (PREP) won second place and a $10,000 grant for the 2021 Ford Gives Back Freedom Award from the Ford Motor Company Fund. Photo courtesy of Chicago State University

Chicago State University’s PREP Program wins $10,000 grant

BY TIA CAROL JONES
    Chicago State University’s Pre-Freshman Program in Engineering (PREP) won second place and a $10,000 grant
in the 2021 Ford Gives Back Freedom Award.
      The Ford Gives Back Freedom Award is given by the Ford Motor Company Fund, Ford’s philanthropic arm. CSU’s Pre-Freshman Program in Engineering has been around for more than 30 years and exposes young students to career opportunities in STEM, with hands-on experience through projects.
     In a release, Pamela Alexander, director of community development for the Ford Motor Company Fund said,
“Chicago State University’s Pre-Freshman Program provides vital support to the African American community and especially to Black youth.” She continued: “We are proud to recognize the
important role PREP plays and to invest in its future success.”
     Marni Boyd, PREP program director and assistant director of Engineering Studies at Chicago State University, said PREP has serviced more than 1000 students throughout it’s 32-year history. Boyd said she is excited the program won second place. “We work hard, we work hard and my students work hard, so I’m just really proud of them,” she said. “Just to be able to work through the pandemic is really amazing.”
    Boyd said the PREP program really prepares students for careers in STEM. She said they get challenging projects
and they really pull through. “It’s just nice to be recognized through the Ford Motor Company Fund to receive this
opportunity,” she said, adding the grant money will be used to support the STEM activities the program does. “We do a lot
of hands-on projects to prepare students for careers in STEM. This summer we’ll be doing a project with grain energy, we’ll be buying supplies to support that project. It’s definitely a great benefit to have these additional funds.”
     Boyd said, continuing the program through the pandemic meant working in a remote setting. The grant money will be used to ensure each student gets a kit to complete the hands-on projects, with the necessary materials.
    Kaleia Maxey has been a participant of the PREP program since she was in eighth grade. She said she wanted to
participate because she was interested in learning about what engineering was. She said being in the program has opened a lot of doors for her and given her different experiences in engineering. Maxey will attend Purdue University in the fall and will major in engineering.
    Sabine Ramirez was introduced to the PREP curriculum after she won an internship to participate in the program. She said she was never part of any STEM program at her school, Epic Academy Charter School, because they never offered those programs. “Being in the PREP Program gave me the opportunity and resources to dive into my passion for engineering, build different components and projects,” she said.
     Ramirez will also attend Purdue University in the fall and major in mechanical engineering. She said she hopes other children get to experience the PREP program because it helped her get into college.
    “With the PREP program, I was able to get exposed to different types of projects,” she said, adding that she was
able to put experiences from completed projects on her resume. “That allowed me to apply to different scholarships
that I knew I qualified for because I had these different things on my resume, these different programs, these different
organizations. That offered me great scholarships, like the Lockheed STEM Scholarship and Internship Opportunities
that are offered to all engineering disciplines.”
   Maxey said because of the PREP program, she knew she wanted to major in engineering in college. During her junior year, while in the program, she discovered she wanted to focus on industrial and civil engineering. “Being exposed to those different things while being in the PREP program, helped
me get into college but also helped me realize my future,” she added.
     Boyd said the grant money will allow the PREP Program to remain true to its mission of exposing underrepresented
middle school and high school students to careers in STEM.
    For more information on the Ford Motor Company Fund, visit www. fordfund.org.
    For more information on the PREP program at Chicago State University, visit tinyurl.com/2xnb4mnx.

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