Professor Erica Hernandez Accepted as a Candidate for Faculty Innovation Fellows program at Stanford University’s d. school

BSU Student Fellows Prepare for Project Presentations

MEDIA CONTACT: David Thompson, dlthompson@bowiestate.edu, 301-860-4311

(BOWIE, Md.) – Bowie State University’s Dr. Erica N. Hernandez, assistant professor of psychology,  is one of 22 educators from 15 higher education institutions from around the world and the only faculty member from an HBCU to be accepted as a candidate in the two-year 2021 - 2023 Faculty Innovation Fellows Program. Fellows are developing unique projects to enhance the learning environment at their institutions, help students gain real-world skills and mindsets while contributing to expanding innovation and entrepreneurship at their schools.

Faculty Innovation Fellows work with other faculty members, administrators, and in collaboration with their student University Innovation Fellows to design ways to improve their institutions. Dr. Hernandez says BSU students have identified two projects to address some basic issues that students confront daily at the university and across the nation.

“One project is on increasing student engagement for commuters and the other is focused on how to better support students who have children,” said Hernandez. “Twenty-six percent of all undergraduate students, or 4.8 million students nationwide are raising dependent children with women accounting for 71 percent of student parents. Women are also disproportionately trying to balance college, parenthood, and work which punctuates the importance of the BSU project. Men are a smaller share of student-parents nationally, but they are also an important part of the conversation on how to support student-parents.”

BSU’s student University Innovation Fellows are Britnee McCauley, a senior business administration major, and Shafeqah Mordecai and Syeedah White, both graduate students in the counseling masters’ program. 

Dr. Hernandez and BSU’s student fellows will travel to Palo Alto, California on March 21, to participate in an entrepreneurship program to present their projects and collaborate with other student Fellows . 

“The program trains students to be thought leaders on their campuses and drive changes they want to see happen,” said Hernandez. “Colleges and universities must adapt to not only how we teach students, but also how we help them to become innovative problem solvers.”

Faculty members must complete an application to be accepted in the program. Students at Bowie State must be nominated by a faculty member to participate as a Fellow.

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About Bowie State University
Bowie State University (BSU) is an important higher education access portal for qualified persons from diverse academic and socioeconomic backgrounds, seeking a high-quality and affordable public comprehensive university. The university places special emphasis on the science, technology, cybersecurity, teacher education, business, and nursing disciplines within the context of a liberal arts education. For more information about BSU, visit bowiestate.edu.

About the University Fellows Program
The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students and educators to become agents of change at their schools. The members of this global community are leading a movement to ensure that all students and educators to become agents of change at their schools and gain the necessary attitudes, skills, and knowledge required to compete in the economy of the future. The University Innovation Fellows is a program of Pro (d.school).  Learn more at universityinnovationfellows.org.