By: Eli Freund, Editorial Communications Manager, UConn School of Engineering 

For 36 hours, on March 27-28, all of UConn Nation will come together like never before during UConn Gives to show their support for the University they love and the programs they are passionate about. Gifts can be made between 7 a.m. on March 27 and 7 p.m. on March 28.

This year, the School of Engineering will ask alumni and friends to join together in support of three specific initiatives:

SPARK: Helps shrink the STEM gender gap and inspire young women to become engineering students at UConn. Your gift to SPARK will allow middle school and high school female students access to a series of week-long, engineering  programs focused on disciplines including coding, robotics, 3-D printing, and real-life problem solving. 

BRIDGE: Allows UConn to lead the way in increasing the number of underrepresented students in engineering and other STEM fields. Your gift will provide fellowships for BRIDGE, a five-week summer program designed to prepare students who are underrepresented in engineering fields for the rigor of engineering curriculum at UConn, introduce leadership opportunities and careers in engineering, and to familiarize students with the University of Connecticut and the college experience as a whole.

Freshman Year Experience: Use your donation to help alleviate financial stress for a UConn Engineering student. Your gift will support the purchase of Arduino Kits, a palm-size circuit board for students to learn basic computer science principles during the Freshman Year Experience program.

These three initiatives are needed and important to fund, because of our recent explosive growth. That growth—a 70% increase in our undergraduate population over the last five years—means that we are projected to graduate a record number of students. These students will go on to be the next generation of educators and engineering leaders, and your donation helps us provide them with the best tools available. Your donation also helps fund our diversity and outreach programming, which creates a direct pipeline into our local schools, attracting some of the best female and minority students into the engineering discipline.

Thank you for giving back to our students, as well as our school. Your donation is truly an investment in the future of engineering, the state, and the University.

To donate to our three causes from March 27-28, please visit (link is only active at 7 a.m. on March 27): https://givingday.uconn.edu/?cfcat=7991