The National Science Foundation has awarded almost $3 million over a five-year period to The Institute for Meaningful Engagement at the University of California, Irvine. This new education project will explore the environmental factors prompting underrepresented students to leave science, technology, engineering and math programs and investigate how faculty can foster better classroom cultures to retain them. A multidisciplinary leadership team will partner with the deans of UCI’s six STEM schools to accomplish this.

Pheather R. Harris, director of the university’s California Alliance for Minority Participation, is the mastermind behind this innovative intervention that emphasizes faculty impact on student success in STEM. She wants to see two outcomes upon completion of the project: “The first is for faculty to recognize who they are in this conversation we’re having about inclusion and be able to have the tools they need to continue the work of enhancing inclusive spaces. [The second is] for every single student to feel a sense of belonging, to feel seen and heard in their academic experience, and to achieve their full potential without the influence of the environment deterring them from their original goals and dreams.”

Read more about the TIME NSF Award here.