College of Education receives $3.2 million grant

Rowan University‘s college of education has received a five-year, $3.2 million grant. This is part of a $10.8 million grant awarded to the Garden State Partnership for Teacher Quality.

The Teacher Quality Partnership grant is part of federal stimulus money. The grant has been awarded to William Paterson University and Kean University, along with Rowan.

Dr. Jill Ann Perry, Interim Associate Dean of the college of education, acted as the primary grant writer. She worked with administrators and staff from William Paterson and Kean, each writing separate components.

According to Perry, the Teacher Quality Partnership grant benefits every teacher certification student enrolled at Rowan University.

“It will also benefit the districts we’re partnering with, so Camden city schools, Christian public schools and [the] LEAP Academy University Charter School, which is also in Camden,” Perry said. “It’s really going to benefit those districts directly and it’s going to affect our students here directly.”

The college of education applied for the grant because they were interested in improving their undergraduate programs, especially the teacher certification program. Their focus is mainly on high-need areas such as mathematics, the sciences and world languages.

As a result, an urban teacher residency program will be created that will resemble a medical residency.

“We’re very interested in exploring that. We have a master of science in teaching that almost aligns with that but that’s still fairly a traditional route to go through teacher certification and we’re looking for something that’s a little different,” Perry said.

According to Perry, since the grant has just been bestowed to the college of education, it will take approximately three to five years to notice a significant change and understand how it works.

There will continue to be constant revisions and improvements. Overall, this new program will allow professors the opportunity to have study groups within the college of education and liberal arts and sciences. The two hope to work more closely with the dual majors.

“This grant is the support needed for the college of education to carry out its mission to prepare the best teachers for today’s classrooms,” said Dr. Carol Sharp, dean of the college of education. “The initiatives outlined in the grant are ones we wanted to address.

“Every child deserves a teacher who knows the content to be taught, has the skill to do it, and believes that all children can learn.”

For further information regarding the grant and undergraduate students interested in the teacher residency program, contact Perry at perry@rowan.edu.