A new STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) Center at Madison College is set to open fall 2017.

The center will have faculty mentors for students interested in STEM careers, a speaker series, industry tours, scholarships, and hands-on research and internship opportunities on campus.

According to Bethany Sansing-Helton, a Madison College math faculty member, the center is to be a “one-stop shop” for all things STEM.

This is good news for Madison College students like Kim Michal who have been looking for advising in the STEM fields. Michal needed to decide “what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life,” but “I could not find effective advising.”  

Sansing-Helton hopes it will be more than just advising. She said the staff have big plans for the new center.

There is a lot of work to do to get the center up and running, but getting a lot done on a deadline is nothing new to the staff working on the project.

The STEM Center was only approved this fall and, while staff members expected to wait another year for a space, Madison College President Dr. Jack Daniels had different plans.

“It’s moving much faster than we thought it would,” Sansing-Helton says of the project, but staff working on the project are dedicated to getting “as much in place as we can” for the start of the fall semester. That is when the true value of the STEM Center will be revealed.

The center is set to be located in what is now the Human Resources Department on the first floor at the back of the main Truax building.

STEM Center staff are looking for student comments on what they want in the center. Ideas about what should be in the STEM Center can be submitted at 608-246-6285 or [email protected]