The Faculty of Engineering is offering new entrance scholarships to support Black and Indigenous students.

Dean Mehrdad Saif says academic institutions play an important role in helping increase the number of underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and math fields.

“Diversity in all of its forms makes for a healthy and vibrant environment, and in team-based activities such as engineering design, diverse teams are the strongest,” he says.

“In engineering, we need to create an inclusive environment so that women, Indigenous, and Black students are included and feel like they belong so that they can freely contribute and co-create while in school, and later, in the engineering profession.”

The $1,000 Black Students in Engineering Entrance Scholarship will be awarded annually to 12 students who are admitted directly from high school to first-year engineering. The University of Windsor is offering to match up to $50,000 in donations to the scholarship.

Additionally, the faculty is offering an unlimited number of $1,500 entrance scholarships for Indigenous engineering students.

Students will receive automatic consideration for these scholarships based on their submitted entrance application profiles.

UWindsor Engineering launched a similar entrance scholarship for female students in 1996. In the last 10 years, female enrolment in engineering has more than doubled. Female students who identify as Black or Indigenous may receive both entrance scholarships.

For more information, contact Katie Mazzuca, the Faculty of Engineering’s major gift officer, at 519-253-3000, ext. 5959, or katie.mazzuca@uwindsor.ca.

—Kristie Pearce