Healey-Driscoll Administration Announces 2023 STEM Summit With Theme of Reimagining High School

In full transparency, the following is a press release from the Massachusetts Department of Education submitted to SOURCE media.

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BOSTON –– The Healey-Driscoll Administration announced today, April 3, at Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll’s first STEM Advisory Council Meeting as Co-Chair that the 2023 Massachusetts STEM Summit will be held on May 4th at the PTC Global Headquarters in the Boston Seaport.

The Summit will promote the cutting-edge STEM work occurring across the Commonwealth’s education and employer partnerships, featuring captivating speakers and collaborative panels that engage students, educators, and workforce partners with a common goal of “Reimagining High School.” 

“Our administration knows the value of a STEM education and sees it as a crucial piece to strengthening our state’s economy, driving our competitiveness and building a brighter future for all,” said Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll. “This year’s STEM Summit will set the stage for us to address barriers to access and improve equity. As the first all-women team to lead Massachusetts in history, Governor Healey and I are committed to ensuring that women, people of color, and other underrepresented groups in STEM get a shot at entry opportunities into these critical fields.” 

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“I am thrilled that this year’s STEM Summit is focused on Reimagining High School. We must reengage and reinvest in the high school experience, and I am so excited to gather students, educators, and employer partners in May to facilitate that conversation,” said Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler. “The Summit will be one of our first opportunities to collect the innovative ideas from all stakeholders on how to transform education for every student, contributing to a more competitive and equitable Massachusetts.“ 

The Summit’s theme of “Reimagining High School” will center on a new vision for high school with equity at its core — one that sees and honors the diverse needs, interests, perspectives and life experiences of all students. Redesigned learning experiences will include creating innovative access points and pathways, embracing innovative opportunities for student engagement, increasing class relevancy with deeper hands-on instruction, collaborating with industry partners to provide wider access to work-based learning experiences, and creating deeper advising to empowering all Massachusetts students to make informed career and college choices in STEM fields and beyond.

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“We are thrilled to host the 2023 STEM Summit at our global headquarters in the beautiful Boston Seaport. PTC is committed to championing diversity as a driver of success in the communities where we live and work. Through the PTC Foundation and our social impact initiatives, we invest in programs that are aligned with our corporate mission to promote diversity within STEM,” said Kameelah Benjamin-Fuller, Chief Diversity Officer & CSR Leader at PTC. 

PTC is a global technology company that has been revolutionizing the computer aided design software market since the company’s inception in 1985.

The 2023 Massachusetts STEM Summit will be held at their Global Headquarters in the Boston Seaport, which has been recognized as one of the greenest buildings in the U.S.

PTC has been headquartered in the greater Boston area since it was founded and has since grown to have more than 6,500 employees across 30 countries. PTC is a prime example of the employer partnerships that are growing Massachusetts’s STEM workforce pipeline — they have been a past sponsor of the Mass Tech Collaborative’s Manufacturing Mash-Up which is meant to inspire the current and next generation of workforce to find fulfilling careers in Advanced Manufacturing.

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The Healey-Driscoll Administration and STEM Advisory Council are working to support and expand different types of STEM initiatives that begin to piece together how to reimagine high school. Among these initiatives are Innovation Pathways, STEM-Tech Academies, STEM Internships, and Skills Capital Grants with the Career Technical Initiative (CTI). The STEM Advisory Council is Co-Chaired by Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, U.S Congressman for Massachusetts Jake Auchincloss, and Chairman, President and CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals Dr. Jeffery Leiden. The STEM Summit is hosted jointly by the Massachusetts STEM Advisory Council, the Massachusetts Business Roundtable and the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute. Massachusetts has held an annual statewide STEM Summit since 2004. 

This year, the STEM Summit comes at a time when the Healey-Driscoll Administration has made historic and strategic investments in career and college pathways for high school students. Governor Healey’s and Lt. Governor Driscoll’s FY24 budget proposal includes nearly $47 million for Early College and Innovation Pathways, a $14.4 million increase from FY23. Prioritizing programs that help expose students to hands on training and higher education courses at an earlier age help them decide what career paths they are interested in pursuing. These initiatives are one way the administration is forging a path toward a transformed high school experience for students across the Commonwealth