North Carolina A&T Gets $500K to Train STEAM Teachers

• Toyota split a $1 million donation between North Carolina A&T and Communities in Schools of Randolph County.
• N.C. A&T will use the donation to build a new STEAM lab for its College of Education.
• First lady Jill Biden earlier this month lauded N.C. A&T's College of Education.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (N.C. A&T) will use a donation from Toyota to train future educators to teach science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics (STEAM).

On Wednesday, the car manufacturer announced a $1 million donation to boost STEAM education in the North Carolina Triad.

Half will go to Greensboro's N.C. A&T, one of the country's historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The other half of the donation will go to Communities in Schools of Randolph County (CiSRC), a student-support organization.

N.C. A&T will use the grant to create the Toyota STEAM Lab in its College of Education to give elementary and secondary education majors access to practice-based education with K-12 students from the area.

"We are grateful that our friends at Toyota understand that the key to meeting the challenges of the STEAM workforce of the future is to invest in rich STEAM educational opportunities for students today," N.C. A&T Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr. said in a statement.

“N.C. A&T will use the grant to create the Toyota STEAM Lab in its College of Education to give elementary and secondary education majors access to practice-based education with K-12 students from the area.”

CiSRC will use Toyota's donation to launch the Jobs for North Carolina Graduates program. It will provide students with specialized instruction and experiences to support graduation rates and employability, said CiSRC Executive Director Paula Owens.

Toyota has 2,100 jobs to fill in North Carolina, Sean Suggs, president of Toyota's North Carolina battery manufacturing operation, said in a statement, "so better preparing our next generation workforce is critical."

N.C. A&T's grant comes two weeks after first lady Jill Biden and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona made the HBCU their first stop on the Department of Education's Road to Success Back to School Bus Tour.

During the stop, Biden, who teaches at Northern Virginia Community College, praised N.C. A&T's College of Education.

"Teaching isn’t what we do, it’s who we are," Biden said to N.C. A&T student-teachers standing on stage with her. "So if we want to add more bright, talented people into this field, if we want educators to be able to do what they do best, we have to give them the support that they — or you all — deserve."