Background Information:
Our CSTEP program director, Dr. Quy Nguyen, has worked with many under-represented minority (URM) college students (through CSTEP) to help them explore and gain acceptance to health professions, particularly Optometry. As the program succeeds, and as our nation becomes more diverse, there are more URM students enrolled at the College now than ever. With this in mind, starting in 2017, he applied for funding from SUNY System to form "SUNY Irises," a student support group, as a start of an effort to support matriculated URM students at SUNY, many of whom were formerly in CSTEP.
As COVID-19 continues to negatively affect funding for many programs, the CSTEP director is formally transitioning support for “Irises” students to CSTEP to sustain the program for the long-term – that is, under our CSTEP program, we will now support both undergraduate (CSTEP Interns), and enrolled OD students at SUNY (CSTEP Irises).
These grants were introduced to support high-need, URM students, with preparing for their licensing boards and were made possible with these efforts in mind. Along with CSTEP, the CSTEP director has obtained additional support from VSP and Keplr Vision to provide as many grants as possible. Thank you VSP & Keplr Vision!
The two grants available from CSTEP for this year are: 1) KMK Parts I & II Grant (fully paid +Plus bundle from KMK that covers both parts I and II), and 2) NBEO Part III Grant (a $600 stipend to help offset the costs of traveling to NC for the exam).
Student Eligibility:
- New York state resident
- African-American, Hispanic/Latinx, American Indian or Alaskan native
- If you don’t qualify by ethnicity, you would have to be economically disadvantaged. Please see this chart for parent income eligibility.
If you ARE NOT African-American, Hispanic/Latinx, American Indian or Alaskan native, please send us verification that you qualify economically, by sending us your parents’ income tax returns for 2020, to: cstep@sunyopt.edu. The first page summary on your parents’ 2020 IRS 1040 form is good enough.
Note: recipients of these grants, who weren’t previously a part of our CSTEP Irises program, will be given an opportunity to be enrolled as a member of the group
Deadline: Friday, November 6, 2020 @ 12:00pm EST. Winners will be announced on Monday, November 9th via email.