WASHINGTON

The legacy of former U.S. Congressman Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, to help disadvantaged and minority students gain academic opportunities lives on in numerous federal government-funded science and engineering education activities and programs. This month, the nonprofit Council of Opportunity in Education (COE) establishes an entity that honors the former congressman with the launch of the Louis Stokes Institute for Opportunity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Education.

The Stokes Institute, which is based at the council’s Washington headquarters, will support research as well as curriculum and professional development to improve STEM education for low-income, first-generation and minority students. The institute will work directly with TRIO and other educational opportunity programs, colleges and universities, community organizations, and government agencies to help them implement STEM initiatives, according to officials.

“The institute will be concentrated upon a very targeted group of Americans. They will be low-income, disadvantaged and underrepresented minorities. Along with the concentration of trying to provide STEM education to those groups, which are currently underrepresented, (it) will also be trying to work on the national problem of getting qualified teachers for students in those specific areas,” Stokes says.

Kathryn Kailikole, the director of the Louis Stokes Institute, says she joined COE in October 2006 to lead the organization’s then newly-created office for STEM initiatives and it has since launched programs in five cities. As the chief advocacy organization for the nation’s federal TRIO programs, along with the 850,000 students served by those programs, COE recognized that the nonprofit could take a leading role in shaping STEM education for low-income, first-generation college-seeking, and minority students, Kailikole explains. Support to expand the STEM office into a full-fledged institute has come from the General Electric Foundation.