Cal Poly Pomona’s biology and geology departments have been awarded a $1.4 million grant to improve pathways for Pasadena City College (PCC) students who are interested in continuing their environmental science studies at Cal Poly Pomona.

PCC natural sciences Dean David Douglass invited Cal Poly Pomona to share in its $5 million science, technology, engineering and mathematics grant from the U.S. Department of Education because of the connection between the biology and geology programs at both institutions.

Frank Ewers, associate vice president for research at Cal Poly Pomona, hopes the grant will help to facilitate transfer students.

“We hope that it will increase the number of transfer students from PCC to Cal Poly Pomona, and we also hope that it improves the success of such transfer students in the areas of environmental biology and geology,” Ewers says.

“The grant will also enable enhanced advising and mentoring of PCC transfer students before and after the transfer process has been completed,” adds Jonathan Nourse, chair of the geological sciences department.

An additional objective of the grant is to enhance collaborative research projects between the campuses, as well as pay for field equipment for the projects.

“The goal of these projects is to foster mentoring relationships between students and faculty, to expose students to ‘real science,’ enhance students’ enthusiasm for continued education in the environmental sciences, and increase their chances of success in their undergraduate career and beyond,” Nourse says.

Other Cal Poly Pomona faculty members responsible for managing the grant include Jascha Polet, geological sciences, and Marcia Ewers, biological sciences.

(Photo: Faculty members Marcia Ewers, Jonathan Nourse, Jascha Polet and Sepehr Eskandari at Rain Bird BioTrek on Nov. 16.)