BY ANDREW SANTELLA PHOTOGRAPHY BY BOB COSCARELLI
TAKING ROOT
Elmhurst is leading a regional effort to help more students find a home in STEM fields.
Norbaya Durr ’22 spent much of the summer of 2021 on the roof of the Frick Center at Elmhurst University. Durr, who will graduate in January, was conducting plant ecology research with Assistant Professor Kelly Mikenas, and their laboratory was the 4,000-square-foot green roof the University planted atop the student union in 2019. Battered by sun and wind, green roofs can be inhospitable to all but the most tenacious plant species. Mikenas and Durr wanted to test ways to adjust soil conditions on the roof so that more plant species could thrive there. So most days, Durr would clamber up to the roof via a fixed ladder deep inside the Frick Center, sometimes lugging plant trays or a backpack full of gear. The climb never failed to thrill.
“Working on the roof was like stepping out of my own world and into another one,” she said. “I liked feeling immersed in nature and able to do valuable work with my hands. That’s when I decided that I wanted to pursue plant ecology in graduate school.”
First Steps Toward STEM Careers
Durr is just one of many students who have taken their first steps toward careers in STEM fields—science, technology, engineering and mathematics— with a leg up from $2.75 million in grants from the National Science Foundation. The grants from the NSF, beginning in 2019, established a pair of projects, each funded for five years, to support students at Elmhurst and other universities who are from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields. The FASST (Financial and Academic Support for STEM Transfers) program provides scholarships for high-achieving, low-income transfer students, as well
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