ROWING FOR ALL ROWING FOR ALL Program at Brown Shows that Rowing Isn’t Just for the Elite

STEM to Stern is a hands-on program through Brown University and the Narragansett Boat Club that brings together science and sports. Run by volunteers, the free program brings rowing and science lessons to middle school students from the Providence area. The initiative was born when Kristi Wharton, biology professor and president of the Narragansett Boat Club, and men’s rowing coach Paul Cooke were discussing ways to make the sport more inclusive.

“Being a scientist, as soon as I heard the name, STEM to Stern (STS), I thought it was a great idea,” says Wharton. The program, based in science, technology, engineering, and math, hosts summer sessions and twice-weekly classes during the school year.

Intended to be fun, exploratory, and experimental, classes meet on the Brown campus, where activity-based lessons are led by faculty and students. STS students practice rowing as part of the Narragansett Boat Club’s youth program at the club’s boathouse in Fox Point.

The classroom experience is directly connected to the sport. “Our first session was all about water. We bring in ecology, chemistry, we measure the pH, we look at the organisms living in water,” explains Wharton. “We had a session on the physics of rowing. We try to tie the concepts to what they are actually doing on the water.”

Historically, rowing had a reputation of being a sport for students at elite universities; one of Cooke’s goals is to broaden the pool of potential college rowers by including everyone. “As tough as the competition is, it’s still not representative of every potential athlete,” he says. “It’s wonderful to see the demographic changing; you see kids from all around the community out on the water now. You didn’t see that 10 or 15 years ago.”

Cooke sees this program as a development tool, hoping that one day, a participant might be eligible for a college team. “My vision is to bring in people who want to be high performance athletes, from all parts of the community to potentially race at Brown on other university programs or national teams. I get really excited about the competitive aspect.” Learn more at RowNBC.org, StemToSternRowing.org