William Carey University is the recipient of a $2.1 million grant from the United States Department of Education that will support a residency program for the training of 32 students in STEM areas – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – on their way to becoming classroom teachers.
The “Stepping Up STEM at WCU” grant, which was announced during an August 16 news conference on Carey’s Hattiesburg campus, is part of the Department of Education’s Supporting Effective Education Development program. Participants will spend their junior and senior years learning effective teaching strategies in real-world classrooms from experienced math/science mentors and university instructors.
“We are super excited, because … other grants we’ve received have been mostly literacy-related,” said Katie Tonore, WCU School of Education’s chair of curriculum and instruction. “This is the first one we’ve received for STEM … so it is going to be able to give us a jumpstart into getting our undergraduate students into the STEM world.”
The grant is designed to help combat the critical teacher shortage throughout Mississippi. To assist with that, WCU officials are working with eight critical shortage committees around the state, representing the following school districts: Forrest County, Hattiesburg, Covington County, Greenville, Laurel, Picayune, Stone County and Vicksburg-Warren.
The students selected for the SEED program will serve in those districts.
“(The grant) is a tremendous help, because STEM will help with workforce development in Mississippi, and introducing students to these concepts when they’re younger inspires them to go into these fields,” said Mary Rodgers, who serves as Mississippi Teacher Residency Coordinator at the WCU School of Education. “It opens up the doors for capabilities, and it increases the workforce development for Mississippi.”
Upon graduation, the students will receive a K-6 teaching license with additional certifications in STEM and Special Education areas. After that, they will work as full-time teachers in their partner school district for two years.
The grant also provides the mentor teachers from partner districts with professional enhancement training for three years and the opportunity to earn a STEM endorsement leading to a master’s degree at William Carey University.
“The first component of the grant is that we are paying for these residents to complete their junior and senior years, and they will be highly trained in STEM and (special education),” Tonore said. “The next component is that we are going to provide professional development and STEM materials for those eight partner districts and mentors, so each student will have a math and a science mentor
“They, in turn, will receive training and resources in STEM. The third part is, we are actually going to create a STEM lab on our Hattiesburg campus, so classrooms, teachers, parents, and students can come hang out and play around with robotics, engineering, green screens, 3-D printers and coding.”
This grant follows several other areas of funding WCU has received regarding teacher residency programs. Since 2019, William Carey has received five other teacher residency grants from:
- Mississippi Department of Education: $600,000 grant in 2019 to establish a three-year, undergraduate residency program in Gulfport and Ocean Springs elementary schools. Funded by Kellogg Foundation.
- Mississippi Department of Education: Two-year, $1.8 million grant in 2022 to establish master’s-level teacher residency program with eight partner school districts in three congressional districts. Funded by U.S. Department of Education.
- Black Educators Initiative: Three grants in 2021-23 totaling $300,000 to assist undergraduate K-6 teacher residents with their undergraduate degrees in elementary education.
