History
Recognizing that traditional graduate-level science training may not be suitable for non-academic careers, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, in 1997, began to support master’s-level degree programs designed to provide science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ("STEM") students with a pathway into science-based careers. These Professional Science Master’s degrees combine a science or mathematics curriculum with a professional component designed to provide graduates with the necessary skills for a career in business, government, or nonprofit agencies.
Originally funding fourteen campuses, the Sloan Foundation expanded its support directly or indirectly to over fifty institutions, collectively offering over 100 different PSM programs. In 2005, the Foundation funded the Council of Graduate Schools to be an “institutional base for PSM growth, with the goal of making the degree a normal, recognized, widely accepted academic offering”. In furtherance of this objective, the Sloan Foundation also provided support to found the National Professional Science Master’s Association, a professional organization of PSM directors and alumni intended to “provide a collective voice for PSM degree programs”.
In 2007, Congress passed the America COMPETES Act which placed special emphasis on improving America’s economic competitiveness by strengthening STEM education. The COMPETES Act specifically mentioned the importance of the PSM degree to the nation’s overall competitiveness. Additionally, a 2008 report issued by the National Research Council of the National Academies urged the continued expansion of the PSM degree. In 2009, the National Science Foundation, under the auspices of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, facilitated funding of twenty-two different PSM programs by appropriating funds for a Science Master’s program.
Read more about this topic: PSM Degree
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews—Micah, Isaiah, and the rest—who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)