“I’ve always been conscious of how much money I’m spending,” he said. “I don’t want to have tons of debt I’ll have to pay back later, especially at high interest rates.”

And so for Vasquez, who works a part-time job at The Home Depot, financial aid from the Montgomery GI Bill, the Virginia Tuition Grant (VTAG), and a new National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM Scholarship has been a godsend in covering the full cost of his college education.

“Without the NSF S-STEM Scholarship, I would’ve struggled financially,” he said. “The scholarship really takes the pressure off my shoulders, because now I won’t have that debt looming over my head.”

Born and raised in Harrisonburg, Vasquez graduated from high school in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and attended Blue Ridge Community College while enlisting in the military. After completing recruit training, taking time to reassess his academic goals, and changing majors from business to computer science, he transferred to 91����Ƶ last fall. 

He is among an initial cohort of 91����Ƶ students receiving the NSF S-STEM Scholarship, which provides:

• Up to $15,000 in unmet financial need annually for the length of the degree
• A paid one-week Bridge to College program
• A STEM mentorship program
• An eight-week paid internship
• Free conference attendance
• Forest restoration opportunities in Park Woods (91����Ƶ’s on-campus woodland)

The scholarship is open to high-achieving, income-eligible students who are majoring in Biochemistry, Biology, Computer Science, Engineering, Environmental Science, Math, or Psychology (research/STEM track).

Applications for the S-STEM Scholarship
are due by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026.

For more information, visit .

‘A welcoming community’

Forming friendships at a new school can have its challenges.

Along with other initiatives provided by the scholarship, a Bridge to College program helps new 91����Ƶ students adjust to life on campus by moving them in a week early, introducing them to STEM faculty and staff members, and engaging them in activities to build camaraderie and form connections with one another. Students participating in the weeklong program receive a generous stipend for their time.

Ani Koontz, a first-year biology and secondary education double major from Newton, Kansas, is a recipient of the S-STEM Scholarship. She recalled traveling to Shenandoah National Park with students and faculty the week before classes, surveying salamanders and hiking trails, before bicycling around Downtown Harrisonburg on a tour led by city officials.

“That first week showed me how friendly and approachable my professors are,” she said. “They’ve done a great job creating a welcoming community.”

Another S-STEM Scholarship recipient, Mara Carlson, is a first-year psychology major from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “Many of us have become close friends,” she said. “I’ll see the other scholarship recipients around campus and we’ll say hello to each other.”

Through the scholarship, each student is paired with an academic advisor specific to their major, who can answer questions and help guide them forward. Carlson said she meets with Kathryn Howard-Ligas, assistant professor of psychology at 91����Ƶ. “We discussed a four-year plan, and I was really grateful for that,” she said. Part of that plan includes gaining invaluable experience through internships and conferences, additional perks of the S-STEM Scholarship.

Carlson said she already knew she wanted to attend 91����Ƶ, and that receiving the S-STEM Scholarship was “a nice surprise.”

For the Kansas-born Koontz, 91����Ƶ had always been on her radar, but she also considered attending in-state schools that normally would’ve been cheaper. When she learned she had been offered the S-STEM Scholarship and that it would lower her college costs to “a very affordable amount,” her choice to attend 91����Ƶ became an easy one.

“It’s 100% the reason I came,” she said. “When I got that, it meant I could completely afford to go here, and it honestly made 91����Ƶ more affordable than any other college in my area. It’s my joy to share how grateful I am because this is truly just an amazing thing that 91����Ƶ has.”

The success has been broad-based, with grants coming from a diverse range of sources, including federal agencies, foundations, and professional associations. This mix of funding highlights the wide-ranging impact of research and programs at 91����Ƶ, and positions the university as a leader in multiple fields. The results of these grants have helped support student success initiatives and professional development opportunities, and provide resources for staff and faculty roles. 

Among the notable recent achievements:

• The National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM Grant provides scholarships and support services for high-achieving, income-eligible STEM majors. This grant helps create a greater sense of belonging and opens new pathways for students in critical fields. It supports a STEM mentorship program, an eight-week paid internship, free conference attendance, and meets unmet financial need up to $15,000. 
• The HRSA BHWET Mental Health grant provides $25,000 stipends for 59 counseling students in internships from Fall 2025 through Spring 2029, while expanding their partnerships and services to schools and clinical sites in areas such as Page County, Virginia, and Pendleton County, West Virginia. The grant also funds conference registration and travel reimbursement for internship students and provides specialized training in telehealth, integrated behavioral health in primary care, and trauma-informed care.
• A SAMHSA grant addresses mental health support, suicide prevention, and substance abuse prevention and education among 91����Ƶ undergraduate students. This is a critical initiative that provides vital support services and programming to the campus community. Royals RISE is the name of the program tasked with implementing the grant objectives and goals. 
• A DOJ Office of Violence Against Women (OVW) grant designed to reduce domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking at 91����Ƶ. The OVW grant is the third iteration of a grant that 91����Ƶ has had since 2017. Safer Together is the name of the 91����Ƶ program that collaborates with community and campus partners to enhance its safety.

Foundation and association grants

• The supports interfaith dialogue and religious literacy initiatives that align with 91����Ƶ’s commitment to peacebuilding and cross-cultural understanding. 
• The Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement Grant: Funding from the Council for Independent Colleges supports the development and expansion of 91����Ƶ’s Center for Teaching and Learning, providing faculty with enhanced resources for pedagogical innovation and student success strategies.
• The supports 91����Ƶ’s distinctive approach to vocation and calling, funding programming that helps students discern their life’s work through the integration of faith, learning, and service. 
• Lilly Endowment Grants support 91����Ƶ’s commitment to vocation exploration and faith integration in higher education. The university has benefited from many Lilly grants that have enabled innovative programming that connects academic study with personal calling and community service. 
• A Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Grant expands training opportunities for students pursuing chaplaincy and pastoral care ministries, reinforcing 91����Ƶ’s commitment to holistic care and spiritual formation. This grant, in collaboration with Palm Beach University, funds the training of a Resident as a Certified Educator to teach in 91����Ƶ’s CPE program and expand its capacity for offering CPE units.

Together, these grants represent more than $5.6 million in support for 91����Ƶ’s mission-driven work. They affirm the dedication of 91����Ƶ’s faculty and staff and the potential of its students.

The grant, awarded through the NSF’s , will fund up to $15,000 annually for each scholarship recipient throughout the length of their degree. Overall, the S-STEM Scholarship will fund a quality undergraduate education for 23 91����Ƶ students among three cohorts over the next six years, beginning with first-year students entering the Fall 2025 semester.

The scholarship is open to academically talented students with financial need who are majoring in the following fields: Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering, Environmental Science, Math, and Psychology (research/STEM track).

Applicants for the S-STEM Scholarship must submit their application and reference forms by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. For more information about the program and how to apply, visit: emu.edu/stem/scholarship

In addition to scholarships, the program offers students a paid one-week Bridge to College experience, where they can meet professors, learn material from their discipline, acquire study skills, and become better prepared for college.

91����Ƶ Biology Professor Dr. Kristopher Schmidt said that some first-year students can struggle to adjust to life on campus, and that the grant aims to ease that adjustment.

“We want to create a sense of belonging,” said Schmidt, who is principal investigator for the grant program.

The program also provides funding for embedded tutoring services and paid tutoring opportunities for students, specialized advising, and guidance from professional STEM mentors.

“This would be a person outside the university in their field of interest who can encourage them, help them, and connect with them along their four-year program,” Schmidt said about the mentors. 

The S-STEM Scholarship program offers innovative opportunities for place-based learning and funding for an eight-week paid internship. Students can use grant-funded resources to conduct research on forest restoration in the Park Woods space, which serves as a key learning lab for STEM students.

This latest grant builds on the success of a similar STEM grant that wrapped up in 2023.

By leveraging grants like these, 91����Ƶ lives into its mission and vision, outlined in its 2023-28 strategic plan Pathways of Promise of opening new pathways of access and achievement, and can help the NSF achieve its goal of diversifying the STEM workforce.

“We were thrilled to receive this,” Schmidt said. “We’re excited and grateful the NSF has chosen to invest in our students at 91����Ƶ.”

Faculty members Kristopher Schmidt, Jim Yoder, Daniel Showalter, Stefano Colafranceschi and Dean Tara Kishbaugh wrote the S-STEM grant proposal.

Stoltzfus is one of six ASU students who co-created “Sustainability Science Education for Teachers.” It’s a new course that aims to ground teachers-in-training in sustainability issues and to give them the tools they need to integrate these issues into their classroom instruction, explains Stoltzfus, who graduated from 91����Ƶ in 2005 with a major in .

The Sustainability Science Education project started under the auspices of ASU faculty member Leland H. Hartwell, a 2001 Nobel Laureate in physiology or medicine. Hartwell came to the conclusion that the best way to spread understanding of sustainability issues through society was through better-prepared teachers.

“Dr. Hartwell met with each of us developing content for the course on a regular basis, defined the objectives of the course, and worked with us to ensure a high-quality, engaging output,” said Stoltzfus. “He is still involved with the course, researching ways to improve student learning [and] make the material more engaging. He hopes to develop a library of resources to provide teachers with when they’re out on their own.”

The project uses online, documentary-style presentations, combined with classroom discussion sections. “We explore complex local and global problems and sustainable solutions through a refined mix of artfully crafted video segments and relevant scientific data with an emphasis on the kindergarten to eighth-grade classroom,” says Stoltzfus. “Our mission is to empower future teachers to educate the next generation to succeed in a rapidly changing world.”

Stoltzfus is also working with a program funded by the , called GK-12, which has the similar goal of integrating sustainability concepts in high school classrooms. One of the objectives of the GK-12 program is to help teachers meet state and national standards.

“Our course attempts to give them the skills to weave sustainability concepts into existing lesson plans, rather than have to teach it ‘on the side.’”

In the spring of 2012, Stoltzfus spent 15 hours a week in two high schools, teaching, helping teachers to prepare grants and sustainability projects, and working with student clubs.

Stoltzfus says his work in the schools has been “very rewarding,” as has his experience of working under Hartwell. Stoltzfus expects to earn his doctorate in sustainability in May of 2015.

Stoltzfus is the son of , a long-time 91����Ƶ professor of .

Read more…

In addition, many majors include opportunities for internships, where students apply classroom learning to “real world” settings.

Beyond this, a number of students majoring in the sciences, particularly biology or chemistry, are supplementing their laboratory experience with original research projects on and off campus with 91����Ƶ professors.

91����Ƶ students Elisa Troyer and David Showalter (l.) look at a sample trace on the computer screen as part of an electrophysiology setup in an instrumentation lab with 91����Ƶ chemistry professor Matthew Siderhurst. Photo by Jim Bishop

This year, the departments of biology and chemistry are benefiting from seven grants from federal and state agencies or from private foundations, according to Doug Graber Neufeld, professor of biology and chair of the biology and chemistry departments.

“These grants are critical to help to support the many students involved in independent research projects, with the subjects of studies ranging from molecular neurobiology, to the chemistry and ecology of insects to water-related issues in developing countries,” Dr. Graber Neufeld said.

“The past year saw 17 students involved in research projects during the year, with an additional 10 students involved in summer internships with 91����Ƶ biology or chemistry faculty.”

Work in Cambodia and Thailand

Graber Neufeld and colleagues from Buffalo (NY) State College used funding from an ongoing National Science Foundation grant to take six students, including two from 91����Ƶ, to work in Cambodia and Thailand this summer. The program gives opportunities for students to work alongside local scientists on issues of drinking water quality and sewage treatment.

Another group of six students will be selected to return with him to Cambodia and Thailand the summer of 2009 to continue the work on water issues. The work is a an outgrowth of two years that Graber Neufeld spent working through Mennonite Central Committee on environmental issues in Cambodia.

Allison E. Glick, a junior chemistry major from Pekin, Ill., was among the students who spent last summer doing research in Cambodia.

“I looked at the concentration of pesticides on water spinach still in the field,” Glick noted. “It was a greatly enriching experience where I learned as much about the research process in a location like Cambodia as I did about pesticide longevity,” she added.

‘Connecting theory with practice’

With the help of a $25,000 Jeffress Grant, a Virginia foundation, along with USDA funds and Hawaii Department of Agriculture funds, Matthew Siderhurst, assistant professor of chemistry, is continuing earlier research on pest control in Hawaii, isolating hormones to use in creating more effective insect traps for ants and beetles. 91����Ƶ students David N. Showalter and Elisa Troyer worked with Dr. Siderhurst last summer in the Suter Science Center laboratory.

Showalter, a senior biochemistry major from Harrisonburg, is writing a paper on the project the fall semester that he “hopes to have published in a scientific journal.”

“I anticipate doing graduate work in biochemistry, and this experience is helpful preparation that I wouldn’t otherwise get,” Showalter said. “It’s proving a valuable way of understanding analytical methods and connecting theory with practice.”

Greta Ann Herin, assistant professor of biology, has participated for two summers in the Shenandoah Valley Molecular Biology Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Students participating in the program investigate the modulation of glutamate receptors that are important in brain function. 91����Ƶ’s portion of the REU amounts to approximately $21,000, including supplies and stipends for the student participants.

Students ‘develop independence’ as researchers

“The goal is for the student to develop independence as a researcher by conducting his/her own research project, gaining skills in the laboratory, being exposed to the primary literature, participating in scientific presentations and discussions,” Herin said.

An 91����Ƶ faculty group from a cross-section of departments have formed the Shenandoah Anabaptist Science Society (SASS) for constructive engagement of science and religion.

The group has received a three-year, $15,000 matching grant administered by the the Metanexus Institute Local Societies Initiative, a Philadelphia, Pa.-based organization, with funding from the John Templeton Foundation.

SASS steering commmittee member Roman J. Miller, professor of biology at 91����Ƶ, said the Society “provides resources and a formal context to encourage the integration of Christian faith – particularly in its Anabaptist expression and convictions concerning peacemaking and service – while helping students learn more about major real-world issues at the intersection of science and Christian faith.”

Students Doing ‘Cutting-edge Research’

Stephen Cessna, associate professor of chemistry, in collaboration with James M. (Jim) Yoder, professor of biology, secured some $100,000 in grant funding from the National Science Foundation for laboratory equipment for plant psychology and ecology laboratory courses.

“This is not trivial stuff. These students are doing cutting-edge research,” Graber Neufeld said. “As a bonus, a number of students wind up having their research published in scholarly journals or being invited to give presentations at professional conferences.”

He noted that two 91����Ƶ students, Laura Cattell and Allison Glick, will present findings from their research in water treatment and pesticide use in Cambodia at a conference in Pennsylvania in November 2008. One of Dr. Siderhurst’s students presented at a meeting this summer.

“All the grants we’ve received are involving students in these research projects,” the 91����Ƶ professor said. “For a school our size, that’s rather impressive.”

Margaret Parker, a rising senior biology/pre-med major at 91����Ƶ, and Obi Onuoha, a rising junior biology/allied health major from Virginia Union University in Richmond, are spending 10 weeks in laboratories in 91����Ƶ’s Suter Science Center studying “electrophysical investigations in glutamate receptor function.”

Ms. Parker, of Wichita, Kan., and Onuoha, from Salisbury, Md., and originally from Nigeria, are among 12 students taking part in an NSF collaborative project at three area schools, May 21 through July 26, 2007. The others are working in laboratories at neighboring Bridgewater College and at James Madison University, addressing questions in genetics, cells, tissues, organisms and ecosystems.

The NSF project is designed to provide in-depth basic scientific research opportunities for students who are not enrolled in major research universities. It is a competitive program, with recipients receiving a stipend, supply allowance, travel funds, lodging and meals.

Parker and Onuoha explained that glutamate receptors “are important in converting chemicals to electrical signals in the brain that are critical to the learning and memory process.” Overexcitation of these receptors can cause cell death, such as secondary damage following a stroke.

Obi Onuoha and Maggie Parker cooperate to prepare an agarose gel in the 91����Ƶ lab.
Photo by Jim Bishop

In the 91����Ƶ lab, the students are looking at one particular way of controlling these receptors by reducing and oxidizing agents in the environment outside of the cell.

The students have been converting DNA molecules to RNA that will be injected into frog eggs. They will then record tiny electrical currents from the eggs and analyze their findings.

“I’m learning a lot this summer that I can apply to my undergraduate program and eventually in my graduate work,” said Onuoha. “I’m trying not to take any of this for granted.”

The smaller setting with regular faculty interaction” is helping me better understand the implications of what we’re doing and why,” said Parker. “I’m especially pleased that 91����Ƶ is promoting involvement in the larger scientific community through this project – it’s good for the students and for the [participating] schools.”

Ultimately, their findings may contribute to the creation of a drug that can help improve memory retention, for example.

Greta Ann Herin, assistant professor of biology, is 91����Ƶ’s faculty participant, relating closely to the students in their daily work.

“This is so different from a typical lab course,” Dr. Herin said. “The students are required to synthesize learnings from a variety of courses – physics, math, biology – utilizing everything at once.”

In addition to close faculty-student interaction, there are frequent opportunities for seminars and guest speakers in cohort settings and social programs – including a canoe trip – to help students develop camaraderie with peers and mentors and more deeply appreciate the broad use of molecular biology tools.

The program will conclude with a poster session July 26 when all 12 students present their research findings and answer questions.

Parker will work this fall with Herin, either continuing her present research or another project. She plans to take a year off after graduation from 91����Ƶ and then will apply to medical school. She eventually wants to be a missionary doctor.

Onuoha wants to do graduate work in microbiology or become a family physician. He will present his findings at a national scientific meeting in Texas this fall. Parker also hopes to present at a meeting at some point.

“This experience is so valuable in that students are learning to problem-solve; it is their project that they own, and in the process they actually contribute to an existing body of knowledge,” Herin said.

More information on the summer research program is available at www.jmu.edu/biology/reu/reu.shtml.

The REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) grant will provide funding for 12 students to do intensive research in molecular biology to address questions in genetics, cells, tissues, organisms and ecosystems. They will work under faculty supervision in laboratories at JMU, 91����Ƶ and BC from May 21 through July 27, 2007.

Students should apply to the program director, Dr. Terrie Rife, assistant professor of biology at JMU. Applicants must have at least one year of college-level chemistry, one year of college-level biology and a grade point average of at least 2.75.

“The goal is for each student to develop independence as a researcher by conducting his/her own research project, gaining skills in the laboratory, being exposed to the primary literature, participating in scientific presentations and discussions,” Dr. Rife said.

Stephen Cessna, associate professor of chemistry at 91����Ƶ, said the project is unique in that the students’ focus will be molecular biology – what can be done with DNA – and will “provide research opportunities for students who aren’t enrolled at major research universities.

Greta Herin

“It will be mentored research with close faculty-student interaction,” Dr. Cessna said. In addition to research, there will be frequent opportunities for seminars and guest speakers in cohort settings and social programs – including a canoe trip – to help students develop camaraderie with peers and mentors and more deeply appreciate the broad use of molecular biology tools.

The program will conclude with a poster session in which the students present their research findings. Ultimately, the students may be invited to present their research at a regional or national scientific meeting.

Dr. Greta Ann Herrin, assistant professor of biology, will be 91����Ƶ’s faculty participant.

Half of the students will be selected from JMU, 91����Ƶ and BC, with the others coming from other colleges and universities across Virginia and beyond.