Your Gifts at Work June 2014 | Page 13

Storm The Citadel! pairs students with business and engineering mentors from the community. Co-hosted and co-founded by Google and The Citadel, the event reinforces the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The event is designed to encourage students from kindergarten to high school to get acquainted with engineering. Generous support from Google is helping the event grow and move on to a national level of awareness. Students and educators use their best engineering skills to design medieval-style launching devices for the annual competition. The teams do not hurl giant rocks but they do launch small rubber balls hundreds of feet! The event attracts more than 3,000 people to campus each winter. Gifts to the School of Education and The Citadel’s STEM Center fund these and other innovative initiatives. “ Gifts from individual donors and industries such as SCE&G, Google, and Boeing allow the STEM Center to offer innovative and exciting programs that help students experience science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) through activities that are hands-on and collaborative. The goal of these programs is to help students gain or increase their interest in STEM and help them to realize the many exciting career opportunities that exist for those with an educational background in STEM. – Glenda La Rue, STEM Center Director The Citadel School of Education/STEM A collaborative effort of The Citadel’s Schools of Education, Engineering, and Science & Mathematics, the STEM Center delivers outreach initiatives to increase pre-K through college-level student interest, participation, and opportunities in the STEM disciplines. The STEM Center also supports The Citadel’s efforts to produce graduates who are poised to become successful leaders in the STEM fields. To achieve its mission, the STEM Center employs community outreach programs such as the Storm the Citadel! contest.