Return on Investment

By Grace Condon '25, November 16, 2023

As five-year grant comes to a close, its impact is felt.

Mikolaj Konieczny ’24 (right) has been able to take part in engineering workshops during his time at Ithaca College.

(Photo submitted)

As the rest of the Ithaca College campus prepares for temperatures to drop on South Hill, physics major Mikolaj Konieczny ’24 is thinking about Hawaii.

That’s where he’ll be travelling at the end of November, for the 6th Joint Meeting of the American Physical Society Division for Nuclear Physics and Japanese Physical Society. While a trip to a tropical island may be something many students dream about, for Konieczny, it’s a reality thanks to something set in motion before he even arrived on South Hill.

In 2019, the National Science Foundation awarded Ithaca College a five-year, $650,000 grant to recruit low-income, academically talented students in the fields of computer science, mathematics, physics, and astronomy. With the grant money, faculty members designed a program to provide two cohorts of students with real-world experiences via paid attendance at conferences in their disciplines, guaranteed research experience, one-on-one mentorship, and career-skills workshops and internships.

“The program has been very successful thanks to students having stronger faculty support, and connection with other students,” said Kelley Sullivan, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the principal investigator for the grant. “They really rose to the occasion and are doing phenomenally now.”

Kelley Sullivan, associate professor of Physics and Astronomy

The students, who entered Ithaca College in the Fall 2020 and 2021 semesters, have especially benefitted from the dedicated support from professors and classmates alike.

“The program has been very successful thanks to students having stronger faculty support, and connection with other students,” said Kelley Sullivan, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the principal investigator for the grant. “They really rose to the occasion and are doing phenomenally now.”

One of the main highlights of the program has been the opportunity to attend conferences and compile research.

“From working with superconductors to physical and educational research, to even climate science, there's different transferable skills that I've learned [at IC] that have helped shape this journey.”

Mikolaj Konieczny ’24

“That’s what really made my experience at IC so valuable,” said Konieczny, who is an international student from Ireland. “From working with superconductors to physical and educational research, to even climate science, there's different transferable skills that I've learned that have helped shape this journey.”

He has already attended multiple conferences since coming to South Hill. At a conference hosted in Las Vegas by the American Physical Society, Konieczny and his co-presenter won the best undergraduate poster out of all 300 presentations.

Students in the cohort were able to tour Ursa Space Systems in Ithaca. (Photo submitted)

Because the grant was only for five years, to continue providing conference trips and other resources to the second cohort of students, the department must fund for an added year.

“You really need six years so you can get that second cohort through,” Sullivan said. “So, we’re graduating the first one this year and the second one next year.”

Judith Pena-Shaff, professor and chair of the Department of Psychology, is a qualitative data methodologist who has undertaken the task of surveying the students in the program so the results can be analyzed and shared.

These impact numbers and statements can be helpful in influencing the administrative decision whether to continue supporting student conference travel.

“What we're hoping will come out of the research is some really solid evidence that shows how much these opportunities are impacting students, to ensure that these are permanent programs, rather than things that come and go,” said Sullivan.

Elizabeth Richards '24, another student who came to IC thanks to the grant, took part in the Summer Scholars program offered by the School of Humanities and Sciences. (Photo by Grace Condon '25)

Other resources provided in the program have included a residential learning community that has allowed STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) students to be housed on the same dorm floor and receiving one-on-one mentorship from an upper-year student during their freshman year.

Another critical component was the student-conducted research, in-field internships and collaborative projects and workshops across STEM disciplines. Konieczny and his friends he made through the STEM Residential Learning Community have had a whole world of scientific research and implementation open to them.

“I’m part of the Cornell University nanoscale facility, where I’m working on superconductors and making superconducting quantum interference devices from scratch, which is an experience that most students, even graduate students, don’t get,” Konieczny said, “There’s a lot of opportunities here in collaboration with Cornell just across the hill. I can do meaningful research and I can develop in ways that my colleagues back in Ireland just don’t have the opportunity to, so I think I’m really privileged in that regard.”

In addition to having worked with a peer success coach that helped them transition from high school to college, each student sees an assigned faculty mentor more often than a typical student would see an academic advisor.

“We do workshops every semester in conjunction with the Center for Career Exploration and Development. We've done them on LinkedIn, writing resumes, writing cover letters,” Sullivan said. “We’re working on their interview skills this semester and next semester we’re going to work on negotiating job offers.”

“I want to thank all the faculty at Ithaca College, specifically the Department of Physics and Astronomy, for helping to guide my journey and for making physics not only accessible but also exciting.”

Mikolaj Konieczny ’24

The STEM faculty also held a three-hour event for all students in the program on engineering design, and next semester, “We’re planning a six-hour event so they really get a chance to learn something, and they can actually then talk about that skill,” Sullivan said.

The students have also taken advantage of other unique opportunities the college offers.

“Lots of the computer science students have stayed for the Summer Scholars Program,” Sullivan said. “These are full-time positions for eight weeks where students work with professors on an in-depth project.”

One such student is computer science major Elizabeth Richards ’24. Through the Summer Scholars Program, Richards is working to develop Localify, a nonprofit music mobile app, along with several other students and associate professor of computer science Douglas Turnbull.

The success of the students and utilization of resources in the program is being studied by Pena-Shaf, Sullivan and others at the college to be shared with other colleges and universities. This aligns with the college’s goal of becoming a national model for colleges in diversity, equity, and inclusion outlined in the Ithaca Forever Strategic Plan.

But even without that data, the impact on current students can still be felt.

“I just want to thank all the faculty at Ithaca College, specifically the Department of Physics and Astronomy, for helping to guide my journey and for making physics not only accessible but also exciting,” Konieczny said.