Department of Curriculum and Instruction Receives 2017-2018 Biennium Bilingual Education Scholarship

The Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Dr. Laura Chris Green, director of Bilingual/ESL program at Texas A&M University-Commerce have been awarded a one-time appropriation of $107,142 from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for the 2017-2018 academic year.

These funds were awarded after the 84^th Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1, Article III, Section 45 to ensure over $2 million to support educator preparation programs at 7 North Texas universities including A&M-Commerce. The overarching goal of these funds is to encourage students to pursue teacher certification in high critical need areas such as bilingual education, ESL, and Spanish. To qualify for this scholarship, A&M-Commerce students must be admitted to an EC-6 Bilingual Generalist or 8-12 Spanish teacher educator program, demonstrate financial need, and maintain a cumulative 3.0 GPA.

Dr. Jennifer Dyer Senette, Ad Interim Department Head for Curriculum and Instruction noted, “Due to the generosity of the Texas Legislature and the leadership of Dr. Laura Chris Green, our department will be able to continue to recruit and graduate high quality bilingual and ESL educators. This funding will support our students and help them achieve their goals.”

Dr. Laura Chris Green, director of the Bilingual and ESL teacher education programs in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, has had a successful history of securing state and federal funds to recruit, retain and graduate highly qualified bilingual teachers.  She stated, “Thanks to previous grants from the Texas Legislature and from the US Department of Education, nearly $1,000,000 has been awarded to in-service and pre-service teachers pursuing bilingual and ESL credentials over the course of the last five years. Thanks to this new state grant, future bilingual teachers and future secondary Spanish teachers will also continue to receive some financial aid. We appreciate the support of the Spanish professors in the Department of Literature and Languages as well as the faculty in Curriculum & Instruction who provide our undergraduate students with excellent Spanish instruction and knowledge of how to best teach culturally and linguistically diverse students in our Texas public schools.”