Renaming and Dedication of the Michael B. Silevitch and Claire J. Duggan Center for STEM Education
At the renaming and dedication ceremony of the Michael B. Silevitch and Claire J. Duggan Center for STEM Education, public school community members, alumni, faculty, staff, students, and Northeastern leadership, including COE Dean Gregory Abowd, Provost David Madigan, and President Joseph E. Aoun, recognized the impact made on a countless number of students for more than 35 years.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cyrus Moulton. Main photo: Michael B. Silevitch and Claire J. Duggan were on hand Tuesday to see the Center for STEM Education at Northeastern rededicated in their honor. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Northeastern’s Center for STEM Education rededicated in honor of 50-year professor, executive director
Hosting STEM field trips for thousands of students from more than 100 Massachusetts elementary and middle schools. Running summer courses for hundreds of rising high school seniors, offering professional development for STEM teachers, and providing more than 180 scholarships for underrepresented graduate and undergraduate students in the STEM fields.
These are just a few of the impacts that the Center for STEM Education at Northeastern University has made over the years.
On Tuesday, the Northeastern community gathered to recognize the people behind those impacts — officially rededicating the center as the Michael B. Silevitch and Claire J. Duggan Center for STEM Education.
“What you have done over the years — both of you — is show the world that you can have an impact,” Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun said at the rededication ceremony held on the eighth floor of the EXP science complex on Northeastern’s Boston campus. “You have inspired people to go into the STEM field and programs.”
Silevitch, the Robert D. Black Professor and Distinguished Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the College of Engineering, is a 50-year professor at Northeastern as well as a triple Husky. He co-founded the center’s predecessor, the Center for the Enhancement of Science and Mathematics Education (CESAME) after offering to help his son Paul and his classmates with science when they were young students in Brookline Public Schools.
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The rededication ceremony featured speakers affiliated with the center as well as a robot dog who entertained guests. Photos by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
“That led to the idea that we could do something big in helping to create understanding in children in science and math,” Silevitch said.
Duggan helped Silevitch realize that vision, directing CESAME and serving as executive director of its modern incarnation.
Several collaborators of the education center praised Silevitch and Duggan.
“Their dedication to increasing support, resources, and an ever growing network of STEM educators has transformed the lives of so many teachers and students,” said Mark Casto, a science teacher in Amesbury Public Schools who has taken part in professional development opportunities at the center. “Teachers in the state are better and more prepared to assist students in being successful.”
Read full story at Northeastern Global News