Governor seeks to increase fellowship funding
By Fangfang Li | Editorial Assistant
Governor Mitch Daniels proposed expansion of funding for the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Program during a news conference at the University of Indianapolis on Aug. 14.
The program currently supports 80 fellows in the Masters degree program, which encourages college graduates, seniors and career changers who are in math and science fields to commit themselves to Indiana secondary school education.
The governor’s goal is to increase the number of fellows to 200 per year, costing the Department of Education about $5 million dollars annually.
“We need major improvement in the math and science mastery of Hoosier kids, and we need it now,” Daniels said. “The way to get started is a new wave of math teachers who really know their math and science teachers who really know their science, trained intensively for a year in the classrooms of experienced educators.”
Indiana is the first state to take part in the teaching fellowship program and UIndy is one of four universities participating this year.
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Purdue University and Ball State University are the other three universities involved.
“It’s a competitive fellowship to get,” said Jennifer Drake, director of the university’s Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowship Program. “They will be competing with the best and brightest across the country, and I think this program will appeal to people who want to give back, who have been thinking that they want to engage in service, and this is a great way to do that.”
According to Drake, the funding that schools have now is for three-year grants, which means the schools will not have $30,000 fellowships to give out at the end of three years. With the funds expansion, schools can continue to offer fellowships to attend the program.
Eighty fellows will be selected by mid-April 2009, of which 20 fellows begin their studies in July of 2009. They will participate in UIndy’s project-based program, earning Masters in Teaching degrees. The other three Indiana schools’ more traditional programs are offering Master of Science Education degrees.
According to Drake, the four universities that have been selected for the program will have different emphases. UIndy and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis are focusing on urban education, Purdue University is focusing on rural education and Ball State University is preparing teachers for small cities’ education.
“I’m really excited and pleased with the direction,” said Beverly Reitsma, Chair of Teacher Education, who is also chair of the assessment community. “The program will be a project-based approach. Our program is particularly targeting urban population. Six projects have been developed and will be approved by the university faculty.”
According to Drake, fellows will have opportunities to do field work, research and work in groups rather than just reading textbooks, listening to lectures and writing essays like traditional courses.
Their goal is to prepare math and science teachers for a variety of contexts in high needs urban schools.
According to Reitsma, during the first year of studying, fellows will have some clinical experience, and after that year, the school will continue to mentor fellows, which means fellows will still be supported for the next three years when they are actually teaching in schools.
Reitsma said the programs should benefit the schools, students and future teachers.
“Math and science are high-need areas,” Reitsma said. “I think it’s doing a good thing for urban education and filling the need. There are varieties of different ways that people can enter into the teaching profession. And this [program] is another way to get high-quality people into education.”
