FOR MORE INFORMATION:
DR. MARK CAUSAPIN, Assistant Professor, Mathematics
(218) 299-3923
AMY KELLY, College Communications and Media Relations Director
(218) 299-3642
CONCORDIA RECEIVES $1.2 MILLION NSF GRANT
Concordia College was awarded a $1.2 million National Science Foundation Robert Noyce Teaching Scholarship grant to implement the Mathematics Teacher-Leaders Honors Program.
The program goals are to address the critical shortage of mathematics teachers in rural school districts in Minnesota and North Dakota, and to produce teachers who will be leaders in both their schools and in the field of mathematics education.
Concordia will produce 16 highly-qualified mathematics teacher-leaders within five years, with majors in both mathematics and education. The students will receive the scholarships during their junior and senior years. Scholars will receive up to $21,000 per year to cover the cost of attendance at Concordia. This can be added to other scholarships received. Dr. Mark Causapin, assistant professor of mathematics, wrote the grant proposal and will lead this program.
“In smaller schools, there aren’t as many mentors for beginning teachers,” Causapin says. This program provides one-to-one mentoring to the new graduates during their first two years of teaching. “We need to send out highly skilled and highly prepared teachers. Some of the added benefits of this scholarship will better prepare these new teachers.”
A stipulation of the scholarship is that recipients will agree to teach in a “high-need” school district for four years within eight years of graduation. High-need means a local school district that serves elementary or secondary schools located in an area characterized by the following: a high percentage of individuals from families living below the poverty line, a high percentage of teachers not teaching in the area for which they were trained, or a high teacher turnover rate.
Additionally, scholars will have a paid part-time internship in the Moorhead Public Schools to assist them with seeing how various instructors teach math and to have interactions with multiple students and mathematics teachers. Scholars will also attend seminars and conferences with both the conference and travel expenses covered, conduct research, and implement a Math Day event at Concordia.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds research conducted at U.S. colleges and universities, is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense.” Robert Noyce (1927-1990) who invented the integrated circuit or microchip which set off the computing revolution that still continues to this day, co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. To learn more about this scholarship, read the NSF award abstract in full at https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1950288&HistoricalAwards=false
Concordia is one of three Minnesota colleges to receive a grant during this grant awarding period.
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