The University of Central Arkansas is the beneficiary of a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant aimed at increasing the number of qualified high school science and mathematics teachers.
The grant will provide scholarships, research opportunities and work-study for eight students selected from the physics, mathematics, chemistry or biology departments. The project will be funded over five years through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program.
“We’re going to pull them out of our freshmen classes,” Carl Fredrickson, associate professor and principal investigator for the grant, said in a news release. “Faculty who are teaching the science and mathematics classes will recommend students out of their classes for these internships.”
Work will begin next summer with a 10-week research project and internship meant to introduce teaching as a profession. The grant pays for the class, in addition to room-and-board.
During the fall and spring semesters, the students will be paid to serve as learning assistants in their departments.
Another focus of the grant will be rewarding scholarships to six junior and senior students in the UCA STEMTeach program, a science and mathematics preparation program molded after the UTeach program at the University of Texas.
“The scholarships are meant to remove the financial barriers that may keep a student from completing his or her degree,” Fredrickson said in the release. “Students who receive the scholarships must commit to teach in a high-needs school district, based on the percentage of free and reduced lunches, for two years for each year of scholarship support.”
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