The sciences are tough enough. For students of color, studying science, technology, engineering or math can be particularly daunting.
At LSU over the last decade and then some, Isiah Warner has been leading efforts to help those students make it from high school all the way through graduate school. And it seems to be working.
The graduation rate for African American undergrads who’ve gotten scholarships and mentorship through a program called La-STEM is 86 percent — by comparison, it was just 60 percent for the LSU campus overall among last spring’s cohort.
Warner is now Vice Chancellor of Strategic Initiatives and Boyd Professor of analytical and environmental chemistry.
As an African American growing up in Bunkie, his enthusiasm for science was unusual — to say the least.