Surprise $200 million bequest has tiny Summer Science Program thinking big

What changes would you make if a summer science camp you’ve run for 64 years with little publicity received a $200 million windfall? That’s the enviable task facing the nonprofit Summer Science Program (SSP), which is reviewing its time-tested strategy of serving a tiny cadre of high-achieving high school juniors in the wake of a bequest from the estate of a former alumnus. One big question is whether the program should expand beyond students already bent on a scientific career to reach the much larger population of students indifferent to science or lacking the opportunity to realize their potential. “It’s an elite program. That’s their brand,” says longtime observer Russell Moore, an integrative physiologist and provost at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder, one of four U.S. universities that host SSP students every summer. “And it’s a remarkable program for those students.” “But it could also be remarkable for other types of students,” says Moore, who confesses that he “never would have gotten into” SSP as a teenager. “And $200 million opens up a lot of possibilities.” SSP’s newfound wealth comes from Franklin Antonio, a 1969 SSP graduate who co-founded chipmaking giant Qualcomm and died last year at age 69. Deciding how to spend it falls to Frank Steslow, a veteran science museum administrator who became SSP’s chief executive in January. Steslow says doubling the number of participants, increasing st...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research