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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2004
Angellica Benjamin
(662) 329-7119 MUW to host three grant-funded
summer programs
COLUMBUS, Miss., -- Mississippi University for Women will host three
programs this summer funded by Mississippi grants.
Two of these programs were selected for funding through the Gaining
Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP)
through the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning
with funds from the U.S. Department of Education. GEAR UP serves 56
schools within 32 districts across the state. This program serves to
improve the educational environment and support for students who live in
economically limited communities and who represent areas with
historically limited participation in post-secondary education
opportunities.
The Division of Nursing will offer the weeklong residential camp, Summer
Adventure in Nursing, June 6-11. This camp is offered to 25 rising ninth
graders from Lee Middle School in Columbus and B.F. Liddell Middle
School in Macon.
Julie Jordan, coordinator for the non-academic activities for the camp,
said, "Students will learn CPR, first aid, how to take vital signs,
about nutrition and fitness, tour the hospital and participate in after
hours programs with students from Business Week."
The students will receive an introduction to the nursing profession,
information about the academic requirements for pursuing a career in
nursing and insight into nursing as a meaningful career in the future.
"This is an opportunity to address the nursing shortage and get high
school students interested in nursing and MUW," Jordan said.
The Division of Science and Mathematics will host Science and Technology
Discovery July 12-16.
Twenty rising ninth graders from Lee Middle School, East Oktibbeha High
School in Starkville and West Lowndes High School in Columbus will
attend. Experiments will be conducted in the areas of biology,
environmental science, physical science and physics. Dr. Marty Harvill,
MUW assistant professor of biology, and Dr. Edward Estalote, math and
science instructor, will facilitate this program. Student biology majors
Crystal Blair and Amy Newton will assist.
Harvill said, “The goal of this program is to introduce students to
different areas of science and give them a sense of what college is
like.”
Students will learn first-hand skills in proper scientific methods and
procedures with the use of Venier Lab-Pro units and graphing calculators
on the data they collect and analyze from the laboratory and in the
field.
Dr. Barbara Moore, MUW undergraduate teaching education coordinator, and
Teresa Gammill, Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science director
for school advancement, will co-direct the Summer Institute for Teacher
Excellence (SITE). This program has been administered at MUW since 1993
and was once funded by the Eisenhower grants. This program is now funded
by the U.S. Department of Education’s No Child Left Behind: Improving
Teacher Quality Higher Education Grants administered by the Mississippi
Institutions of Higher Learning. SITE is a four-week program for middle
school teachers of mathematics and science designed to give a greater
understanding of the concepts of the subjects they teach.
Moore said, “No Child Left Behind states that ‘all teachers in the
United States must be highly qualified.’ In Mississippi, that means that
teachers must have 21 units in the subjects they teach."
She said some educators teach for a long time and decide to switch
subject areas and may not have all of the units they need to be
considered qualified teachers. This program is designed to help these
teachers gain the extra hours they need.
SITE participants will learn teaching strategies that include the use of
hands on learning, technology and outside learning. They also will
receive three credit units in the subject area of math or science for
attending this program.
Teachers who attend this program pay no fee and can be compensated $60 a
day. This program is currently full and there are teachers on the
waiting list.
Moore will conduct internal assessments for Summer Adventure in Nursing
and Science and Technology Discovery summer programs. Assessments will
be conducted with the program participants, their parents and the
facilitators. Pre-assessments will gauge the participants’ prior
knowledge of the subjects of the program they attended and a post
assessment of what they learned from the programs. A post assessment
will be conducted on the parents and facilitators to gauge their belief
of the successfulness of the programs.
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