Meet the CORE Director

Thank you for visiting our new and developing site to learn about the vision for the CORE Program. During the spring 2021 semester, I heard University and public school partners say that the University of Minnesota is in need of cohesiveness around recruiting, engaging, and retaining underserved populations in K-12 STEM programming on campus. Therefore, CORE is not a STEM program; instead, CORE purposes to ensure that historically excluded and marginalized students and their families know about the University’s STEM programs and are supported in identifying, enrolling, and fully participating in them.

Here’s the BIG picture:

Using a cohort model (8^th – 12^th grade), CORE will develop a culturally relevant/responsive and holistic educational ecosystem that increases the likelihood that students will be knowledgeable of, become deeply interested in, and persist in STEM activities beginning in middle school through college matriculation and into professional careers. CORE will:

Recruit, educate & support middle school students from underrepresented groups to participate in existing and new STEM activities, events, and programming at the U of M
Engage and empower students and their families in college and career readiness programming via CORE’s Parent University @ the U of M
Provide college readiness programming with academic support, specifically designed to increase chances of college admission and success in STEM
Offer “STEMulating” exploration of, exposure to and immersion in STEM careers
Facilitate sustained mentoring from middle school through high school with college students and faculty to foster persistence in STEM
Collaborate and coordinate participation in existing STEM programming across the U of M (the basis of CORE’s STEM educational ecosystem)
Provide professional development and training for undergraduate and graduate students to serve as mentors

Into the fall, CORE continues learning from and collaborating with our local St. Paul and Minneapolis public school districts to understand and co-create programming that is intentionally accessible, culturally relevant, and engaging for the entire family. CORE programming officially kicks off in mid-October, and we will engage in respectful partnership in response to the real-time needs of our local communities, families, and students.

Thank you for your interest in CORE.

Yours in service,

Audrey L. Breland
Community Outreach, Retention, and Engagement Program Director

Greetings. I am honored to lead the Office for Equity and Diversity’s Community Outreach, Retention, and Engagement Program. In my first year, I am excited to fully embrace the collaboratively designed vision for a K-12 STEM ecosystem at the University of Minnesota. I bring a broad spectrum of K-12 experience to CORE as I served as assistant vice principal of teaching and learning at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Elementary School in Abu Dhabi, UAE; assistant principal at Aiken Middle School in Aiken, SC; dean of Richland One Middle College at Midlands Technical College in Columbia, SC; and a high school English teacher at Columbia High School in Columbia, SC, and Walterboro High School in Walterboro, SC. I graduated from Walterboro High School in Walterboro, SC, and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina (USC), Columbia, in interdisciplinary studies as well as a master’s degree in teaching and another in education administration from USC.

Meet the CORE Director

Here’s the BIG picture:

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