$4.2 Million Gift to Fund Faculty Development, Centers
for Math and Science Education, Literacy Instruction

11/17/06

OXFORD, Miss. – Educators at the University of Mississippi plan to improve opportunities in the state’s public schools and at the university through $4.2 million in grants from the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation.

The grants will fund two new centers – the Center for Mathematics and Science Education and the Center for Literacy Education – and faculty development and enrichment opportunities in the schools of Education and Applied Sciences.

Chancellor Robert Khayat said the funding will go toward the state’s highest priority: strengthening education.

“The Hearin Foundation has identified our greatest need and has generously provided support to help us meet this challenge,” Khayat said. “Generations of Mississippians will benefit from these wonderful gifts.”

A $1.2 million grant will establish the Center for Mathematics and Science Education in UM’s College of Liberal Arts. The center’s purpose is to improve math and science education in Mississippi by fostering interaction between UM departments and K-12 public schools, and by providing support and training to science and mathematics teachers and students. The grant will be distributed over three years.

“It is increasingly important for individuals to obtain a college degree and to have adequate quantitative skills to enter many sectors of our modern workforce,” said Maurice Eftink, UM associate provost and dean of the Graduate School, who wrote the proposal for the center with John O’Haver, associate professor of chemical engineering.

“We want our UM graduates to have math and scientific reasoning skills, and we recognize that students must begin developing these skills in grade school and high school, before they even get to our universities,” he said. “The CMSE is to be a resource for both university faculty and school teachers, helping them to teach math and scientific reasoning skills.”

Approximately half of Mississippi’s eighth-graders scored below the “Basic” level in mathematics on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Proficiency exam. Similarly, 58 percent of the state’s eighth-graders scored below the “Basic” level in science in the 2000 NAEP. The federal Economic Development Administration’s 2005 report cards for states ranked Mississippi 50th in human resources environment, with the reading preparedness (50th) and math preparedness (49th) of students contributing to poor ranking.

“The problem is immense, but we have to chip away here and there,” Eftink said. “We must stimulate the interest college students have in a teaching career. We must back the math and science teachers who are in the field. We must find ways to keep young people excited about discovery, and we must validate and support the efforts of educators, including our faculty, to work on this problem.”

A second grant of $1.5 million will create the Center for Literacy Instruction in the School of Education.

As they do in math and science, Mississippi K-12 students score low in English and reading comprehension on the NAEP. The center’s purpose is to enhance literacy instruction across the state, leading to stronger student performance and a more knowledgeable society that can contribute to Mississippi’s economic success.

Tom Burnham, dean of the School of Education, said reading competency is clearly one of the greatest concerns in Mississippi education.

“We have far too many children who move through the K-12 educational process without acquiring competency in literacy, especially in the area of comprehension,” he said. “Establishing this center will allow us to make available to schools literacy coaches who can work with teachers on improving the reading skills of students.”

With the five-year grant, the center will fund a pilot program at the undergraduate level to give UM students an understanding of what exemplary reading instruction looks like in a real-world classroom. Outstanding pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first-grade teachers will be identified by the center and trained to mentor education students, and a pilot section of a six-hour required education class will meet weekly at a local elementary school to observe good reading instruction practices or to teach required lessons.

The center’s organizers also plan to establish a graduate program in literacy within UM’s newly formed Department of Literacy. The new degree will align with the International Reading Association’s Standards for Reading Professionals and produce master teachers able to implement a research-based comprehensive literacy program at a classroom level or to serve as a literacy coach.

Other plans call for a graduate course that will partner with area schools to provide tutoring for students who have scored low on the Mississippi Curriculum Test, a literacy professional development program for school district superintendents and administrators, a program to provide intervention for low-achieving first-grade readers within their school’s literacy program and an annual reading conference at UM.

The new center will help the education school make progress in addressing literacy issues.

“We’re continuing to strive to provide leadership in education in the state,” Burnham said. “Ultimately, for both the School of Education and the state, the center will provide additional assistance in a critical area of need.”

An additional $1.5 million, to be divided between the schools of Education and Applied Sciences over the next five years, will provide faculty support and enrichment opportunities.

Dean of Applied Sciences Linda Chitwood said the grant is exciting news for faculty members and will greatly enhance faculty retention.

“It's one of the best things that has happened for our faculty since I’ve been dean,” said Chitwood, who believes the support will decrease faculty turnover, which is costly to the school in terms of time and resources.

“We spend a significant amount of money on start-up and development resources for new faculty,” Chitwood said. “If we can reduce faculty turnover, we will be able to see greater returns on our investments. Our research initiatives will be more stable and fundable, and the quality of our programs will improve. The long-range impact is that our graduates will be better prepared and better able to help resolve some of the problems facing our state.”

The Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation is named for the late Jackson business leader and philanthropist. The foundation has given generously to a number of initiatives at the University of Mississippi, including the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, a new UM Chair of Reading and the Hearin Center for Enterprise Science.

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