U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has announced that the West Virginia University (WVU) Research Corporation has been awarded $748,334 in federal funds to help recruit freshman and sophomore college students to the teaching profession.

“West Virginia’s students benefit from motivated and talented teachers. By encouraging the best and brightest minds at our colleges to become skilled math and science teachers they’ll be inspiring a whole new generation of scientists and engineers. That’s a very good thing,” Rockefeller said. “I congratulate the WVU Research Corporation on receiving this grant and in particular Dr. Paul Hill, head of the West Virginia Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and Dr. Kasi Jackson, who penned the grant, for their leadership.”

Under the proposal authored by the WVU Research Corporation titled, “Teaching Excellence at College for High Achievement in West Virginia” (TEACH–WV), 20 scholarships will be awarded to students who complete the Benedum Collaborative Five-Year Teacher Education Program. Upon completion, students will earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM), as well as a Master’s Degree in Education.  This will qualify them to teach in West Virginia’s middle and high schools.

The funds were awarded through the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program that Rockefeller co-authored several years ago. Administered by the National Science Foundation, grant applications are competitively peer-reviewed.  The aim of the Noyce Scholarship Program is recruiting college students majoring in science, technology, engineering and math to enter the teaching profession.  In exchange for one year of financial aid, recipients agree to teach for two years in rural schools.

Jackson is with the WVU Center for Women's Studies. Her co-principal investigators on the grant are Dr. Jeffrey Carver and Dr. Johnna Bolyard of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction/Literacy Studies; Dr. David Miller of the Department of Mathematics; and Dr. Michelle Withers of the Department of Biology.

Other WVU personnel involved with the project are Dr. Michelle Richards-Babb and Dr. Jennifer Robertson-Honecker of the Department of Chemistry; Dr. Jane Caldwell of the Department of Biology; and Dr. Jim Rye of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction/Literacy Studies.