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The summer of 2026 was full of new opportunities for NCSSM as the school established new enrichment partnerships with UNC System universities around the state. One of those is University of North Carolina Pembroke in southeastern North Carolina, a region where NCSSM’s Extended Learning division has long sought opportunities to establish localized outreach.
The partnership with UNCP is built around NCSSM’s Step Up to STEM program. Since 2013, SUTS has been introducing unique STEM enrichment opportunities to public high school students throughout the state. In its earliest days, programming was offered only on NCSSM’s centrally-located Durham campus. SUTS expanded eastward in the summer of 2022 with a site at Elizabeth City State University.
Now, thanks in large part to a year and a half of planning that involved NCSSM staff, administrators, board members, and representatives from UNCP, the program is within easy geographic reach of rising ninth and 10th grade students from the sandhills of North Carolina to the state’s southernmost communities. The 50 students enrolled in this first summer of UNCP-based programming came from 28 schools across 11 southern and southeastern counties.
Avital Afegnui is a rising freshman at Jack Britt High School, which sits southwest of Fayetteville in Cumberland County. The school is less than 30 miles from UNCP. Though aware of NCSSM in general, Avital did not know the school offered programming for students not yet in high school. Then she saw a flyer for SUTS posted on the wall at her middle school. Intrigued, she went to her science teacher for more information. His response, Avital says, was encouraging. “He was like, ‘Oh yeah, it opens opportunities for you and I feel like it’d be a great fit for you.’”
In mid-July, Avital joined her camp mates for the week-long program in residence at UNCP. Participants lived in dorms just like typical college students, rotated through three STEM-based courses each day taught by UNCP professors, and in the late afternoons and evenings participated in additional enrichment activities designed to foster interpersonal relationships and enhance students’ overall preparation for the increasing rigors of high school.
But it was the core classes – one in math, one in genetics and genomics, and one in biotechnologies – that anchored it all. Together, the courses provided Avital with an experience that expanded her skill set in ways that surprised her.
“The courses we took were really advanced,” Avital says. “There were things in them that I barely even knew about, but the way the professors explained it really helped me and I was like, ‘Wow, am I really doing this? Am I really comprehending what’s going on here?’ And I was! It was just really cool to think that I could do that.”
Avery Locklear, another program participant, will soon be a freshman at Purnell Swett High School, just minutes away from UNCP. NCSSM’s Residential program was already on her radar; she knew that two years on-campus would provide her with the foundational knowledge she would need to get a head start on achieving her dream of one day working as a structural engineer. The availability of an NCSSM summer STEM enrichment program so close to her home for students her age, however, was a total surprise.
The courses, Avery said, contained bits and pieces of things she had studied previously in school, which provided her with a starting point. But the curriculum quickly began introducing new topics and new ideas that she had never encountered or considered before.
“I knew we were going to be learning a lot,” Avery says. “The professors expanded our knowledge and went beyond what we already knew and it got me out of my comfort zone.”
The advanced nature of NCSSM programming is a defining feature of the school’s identity. But it’s often the human aspect of NCSSM’s outreach efforts that leave the longest-lasting impression on participants. That was certainly Avery’s experience.
“I knew on that first day that I was going to be with a bunch of kids who wanted to learn,” she says. “They were asking all these questions, and just engaging with the teacher, and it was just a nice feeling to be surrounded by all those positive attitudes and all that learning.”
Gerri Cole is NCSSM’s Associate Director of STEM Access and Outreach. She played a significant role in helping NCSSM establish the SUTS program at UNCP. The relationship, she says, is a tremendous asset for NCSSM in its efforts to expand opportunities to as many students as possible.
“This was a game changer,” she says. “Before this location opened up, some of the students in the UNCP sessions would have had to go to the Elizabeth City State University campus, and then the others would have gone to the NCSSM-Durham campus. For many of these students, that would have been quite a bit of a drive.”
Applying for available spots at either of those two campuses would have increased the pool of applicants for a fixed number of spots. UNCP as an option helps address that challenge, Cole says.
“Having this additional site allows us to have more spots available for students in southeastern North Carolina.”
Dr. Diane Prusank, UNCP’s Provost and Vice Chancellor Academic Affairs, says the new partnership with NCSSM helps UNCP in its mission as a regional university.
“Having this program and partnership is really important for us because it gives us an opportunity to bring in these young people and let them work with our faculty and help them start to think about college as a pathway. It may very well help them understand that a regional public university – hopefully UNCP – may be where they should go. But no matter where they go, we anticipate they’re going to come back to the region after they graduate from college and contribute to the region in areas such as agriculture, healthcare, computer science, cybersecurity, additive manufacturing. All of these areas are ones that we work in at UNCP.”
Though having just completed the first summer of programming, the new partnership between NCSSM and UNCP has already proven successful in its effort to promote STEM fields as an academic and career option. For proof, look no further than Avital’s characterization of her experience.
“Step Up to STEM really just inspired me and made me realize that wow, I can really do this,” she said. “I’m actually more capable than I thought, and I’m more confident in my skills now and I feel like I can’t wait to pursue a career in mathematics or science.”
Step Up to STEM at UNC Pembroke was funded in part through the generous support of The Anonymous Trust and other private donors.
