Lee University Awarded Diversity in Teaching Grant
Lee University’s Helen DeVos College of Education and Graduate Studies in Education have recently been awarded a highly competitive “Diversity in Teaching” grant by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC). The project entitled “STEPS: Systematic Techniques to Equalize Personnel in Schools,” is led by Professor of Education and Project Director Dr. Gary Riggins.
STEPS seeks to recruit and train highly qualified minority teaching candidates within two years to staff high need schools in high needs areas, e.g., STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). The project aims to address the shortage of underrepresented groups among the teaching ranks and to affirm teachers who embrace diversity as an instructional tool.
Riggins said, “Eleven remarkably qualified STEPS Scholars have been selected for this first cohort. These candidates represent a variety of disciplines, backgrounds, and ethnicities that can and will make a real difference.”
In the past ten years, Lee has prepared over 500 teacher candidates in the 14-month long Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) graduate studies program. The grant will primarily pay for student scholarships to the program, and most of the students will be placed in local school systems for teaching assignments.
This project is funded under an agreement with the State of Tennessee. Funds are provided over a two-year period from August 2011 through July 2013, with $100,000 awarded from THEC, and $114,882 committed from Lee institutional funds towards the project.
“The STEPS grant will make it possible for some very gifted professionals who are currently employed to consider teaching as an alternative career,” said Dr. Debbie Murray, Dean of the College of Education. “The real world perspective these men and women bring to the classroom enriches the teaching-learning process.”
In addition to tuition support, STEPS Scholars will receive intensive faculty mentoring from STEPS Faculty, including Dr. Delia Price, Dr. Reba Barkley, Dr. Ashley Smith, and Dr. Joann Higginbotham.
For more information, please contact Dr. Gary Riggins at 423-614-8193 or griggins@leeuniversity.edu.
(Source: Lee University)
