January 29, 2009

Purdue students, rural schools benefit from scholarship program

The Purdue Robert Noyce Scholars program will fund 35 Purdue juniors and seniors over the next four years to work as assistants in Crawfordsville, Logansport and Benton County high schools. The students are expected to earn teaching certificates in science and mathematics through additional coursework at Purdue.

A recent National Science Foundation grant is supporting the scholarship program. The first Noyce scholars will be recruited this semester.

Eric Riggs, associate professor in the departments of earth and atmospheric sciences and curriculum and instruction, said he hopes those experiences will turn into full-time jobs for the Purdue students as high school science and math teachers in these rural districts.

Riggs is the grant's principal investigator and serves as co-director of the Center for Research and Engagement in Science and Mathematics Education. He said the students will be expected to serve the districts as long as they receive scholarship support from the program.

Purdue's Noyce program is one of four in Indiana, but the only one that focuses on the problems, challenges and opportunities of rural high school STEM education and teacher training, Riggs said. Rural school districts traditionally have problems attracting and retaining teachers skilled in teaching science, technology, engineering and math.

Riggs said the Noyce program will be coupled with Purdue's STEM Goes Rural initiative in the colleges of education and science, funded in part by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. That program is designed to increase the number of students graduating with STEM degrees going into teaching and attracting working professionals in STEM areas back to school for teacher credentials and then teaching in rural schools.

The grant's co-investigators include Chris Sahley, associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Science; John Staver, co-director for the Center for Research and Engagement in Science and Mathematics Education in the College of Education and professor in the departments of curriculum and instruction and chemistry; Kamyar Haghighi, head of the School of Engineering Education; and Mary Sadowski, associate dean of undergraduate programs in the College of Technology.

Writer: Clyde Hughes, (765) 494-2073, jchughes@purdue.edu

Source: Eric Riggs, (765) 494-5346, emriggs@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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