News Release

UNC School of Education program
gets $1.2 million for service, teaching

CHAPEL HILL - A program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education recently received a $1.2 million grant for "Learning to Teach, Learning to Serve," a project to establish a replicable statewide model for integrating service-learning and teacher education.

Student Coalition for Action in Literacy Education (SCALE) received the grant from Learn & Serve America, a part of the federal government's Corporation for National and Community Service.

"Learning to Teach, Learning to Serve" will provide subgrants to 14 North Carolina public or private institutions of higher education to design or modify service-learning teacher education courses. Service learning offers an opportunity for students to get involved with their communities by integrating service with classroom learning. Money from the subgrants will be used to fund supplies, course development stipends, training and materials at each campus.

"As a program of the School of Education at UNC-Chapel Hill, we are committed to helping improve education in North Carolina," said Kathy Sikes, executive director for SCALE. "We hope that 'Learning to Teach, Learning to Serve' will contribute to producing a new generation of socially conscience and civically engaged teachers who have a renewed vigor and commitment to the teaching profession."

Each institution will offer two service-learning teacher education courses a year for three years. Institutions will be expected to produce 25 pre-service teacher tutors per year for a total of 1,050 tutors over the course of the three-year project. A pre-service teacher tutor is a college student in a teacher degree program who will tutor K-12 students as part of his or her course-required service.

Pre-service teachers will learn to use service-learning techniques in their classrooms to introduce K-12 students to a lifetime of service and civic responsibility.

Each teacher will commit to 30 hours of K-12 tutoring during his or her time enrolled in each service-learning course, generally one semester. In addition, the tutors will help K-12 students organize their own service-learning projects. The goal of the program is to create 2,100 K-12 student volunteers in North Carolina over the next three years. Each pre-service teacher tutor is expected to tutor and work with a minimum of two K-12 students.

Founded in Chapel Hill in 1989, SCALE is a nationwide network of college students, literacy workers, administrators and community partners working to encourage participatory education and social work with campus-based literacy programs.

Learn & Serve America supports and encourages service learning throughout the United States by providing support to K-12 schools, community groups and institutions of higher learning.

Applications for the "Learning to Teach, Learning to Serve" subgrants are being reviewed, and a full list of the partner institutions will be available shortly. Contact project director Dr. Keren Zuniga at kzuniga@email.unc.edu or (919) 962-5470 for more information.

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SCALE contact: Keren Zuniga at (919) 962-5470 or kzuniga@email.unc.edu
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589