STEM SENC

Explore STEM SENC (Southeastern North Carolina) at UNCW! This regional effort brings together people, organizations, schools and businesses to support STEM learning in Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Cumberland, Duplin, Harnett, Hoke, New Hanover, Onslow, Pender, Robeson, Sampson, and Scotland counties.

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Our Mission

STEM SENC convenes, collaborates, and builds connections to provide access to STEM learning opportunities for all learners and those who support them regardless of geographic location, socioeconomic status, race, gender/sex, culture, or ability in order to advance college and career readiness.

STEM SENC accomplishes the work described above by doing the following:

Making STEM accessible for ALL stakeholders
Building, strengthening, and sustaining innovative practices that connect in-school and out-of-school learning opportunities
Nurturing and promoting pathways/partnerships that connect learners to careers and opportunities
Enabling learners to develop lifelong critical thinking and problem-solving skills
Guiding and inspiring learners to be career- and college-ready
Working for common goals while valuing individual organizational goals
Maintaining a diverse membership of active and supportive regional stakeholders who are reflective of the communities served
Implementing systems of assessment to inform future endeavors

Our History

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington has a long history of providing STEM learning opportunities for the community.

This includes hosting regional Science Olympiad competitions, providing professional development workshops for in-service teachers, loaning STEM equipment to caregivers for the special education community, and securing grant funding to bring programs like MarineQuest to rural, underserved schools.

In order to be more efficient, intentional, and collegial in our efforts to support STEM, the Center for Education in STEM (CESTEM), Youth Programs, and the Center for Assistive Technology formed the STEM Learning Cooperative (STEM LC) that capitalizes on campus and community partnerships to develop and deliver aspirational STEM learning opportunities for students, families, and educators.

Members of the STEM LC had been watching the work of STEM EAST and STEM WEST in North Carolina as well as other ecosystems across the country and were interested in creating a similar type of partnership in southeastern North Carolina. When the STEM Learning Ecosystems Community of Practice Initiative opened the application process for a new cohort of communities in 2018, the STEM LC reached out to current and former partners to formalize our ecosystem and create STEM SENC.

The STEM LC was joined by 26 partners representing schools, out-of-school learning, STEM-expert and supporting organizations, business and industry, higher education, state government, and parent and family serving organizations. Together they planned to focus on three key priorities:

Create a shared identity for the region anchored in STEM;
Cultivate a vision of STEM as a regional solution to the lack of education and career aspirations; and
Promote STEM as a pathway to healthy living and a promising future.

Steering Committee

STEM SENC operates by means of shared governance. The Watson College of Education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington serves as the lead organization for STEM SENC.