The purpose behind Black & Latinx in STEM (BLIS) organization is to provide black and brown students with opportunities, resources, community, and mentorship that they otherwise wouldn’t receive. Emory and the rest of the U.S have a hard time retaining these students in STEM majors for various reasons, one being that we lack role models in these fields, so students don’t feel comfortable in that space. Another issue is the accessibility of information. Many of these students are not provided with information like internships, scholarships, and classes centered around these fields and so their knowledge of STEM is very limited once they enter college. Once these students get into these majors, they look around at our class and our professors and see no one that looks like them. Students then feel like they don’t have the support they need in these classes or belong in these spaces and change to non-stem majors.
We will be using the funds to support our events.
