UAF's bilingual education work receives $5 million in grants

February 10, 2016

The University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Education and College of Liberal Arts have received three grants totaling $5.03 million to improve educational opportunities for Alaska Natives and rural educators. The grants come from the U.S. Department of Education's Alaska Native Education Equity Program.

The largest grant, a three-year, $2.33 million effort, will fund the creation of a new graduate program in the College of Liberal Arts's linguistics program. The program will support bilingual educators seeking to receive graduate endorsements and master’s degrees in the topic of literacy for emergent bilinguals — people who speak two languages but may lack proficiency in one or both. The program will include a post-certificate endorsement to teach English as second language, as well as a master’s degree related to literacy for emergent bilinguals.

The Lower Kuskokwim School District and the Association of Village Council Presidents, the nonprofit regional Native social services corporation based in Bethel, are grant partners in this effort. The school district is committed to bilingual education and sees this new grant-funded program as an opportunity to increase English and Yup’ik literacy among its 4,200 students. “We are very excited for this opportunity for our teachers and students,” said Assistant Superintendent Carlton Kuhns.

The literacy for emergent bilinguals grant provides funds not only to deliver this education program to students but also to give them scholarships. Twenty teachers from Southwest Alaska will be selected to engage in intensive summer sessions, distance-delivered classes and face-to-face advising in rural communities. Scholarship applications are online now. The deadline for submission is Feb. 15, 2016.

Co-directors and linguistics faculty members Wendy Martelle and Sabine Siekmann invite K-12 teachers to apply. “We are looking for certified K-12 teachers who are interested in and passionate about Yup’ik/English literacy instruction in their classrooms,” they said.

Scholarships will cover tuition and fees, books and travel. All certified teachers are encouraged to apply; however, Lower Kuskokwim School District teachers will be given priority.

The linguistics program and other arts, humanities, social sciences and language programs are housed in the UAF College of Liberal Arts.

A second three-year grant of $1.9 million will introduce teaching as a classroom subject within high schools. The project will replace an earlier approach, called Future Educators of Alaska, in which after-school clubs encouraged Alaska Native students to become teachers. The education classes will be offered to students in the Bering Strait, Nome and Northwest Arctic school districts. Participants will live in Kotzebue or Nome during the second semester of their senior year. The program is housed in UAF's K-12 Outreach Office.

The third grant, of $1.8 million, will expand the Raising Educational Achievement Through Cultural Heritage program in the Bering Strait School District. The REACH program gives Alaska Native students and their teachers an accurate, culturally relevant science curriculum to improve scores on science, technology, engineering and math assessments. The current program works with students in grades K-6. The expansion will involve students in grades 7-12. The REACH program is also housed in UAF's K-12 Outreach Office.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Scholarship applicants for the LEB grant can contact Wendy Martelle, term assistant professor of linguistics, at wmmartelle@alaska.edu or 907-474-7876; Sabine Siekmann, associate professor of linguistics, ssiekmann@alaska.edu, 907-474-6580

ON THE WEB: Scholarship application: https://sites.google.com/a/alaska.edu/leb/apply https://www.uaf.edu/linguistics/