Happy New Year!!
Best wishes to all for a very happy and healthy, fulfilling and fine 1999.

Faculty News

Condolences to Dr. Leslie Ricklin on the loss of her brother-in-law, Suzanne Perfect-Miller's husband.

Dr. Joseph Narotsky Joins Faculty as Field Placement Coordinator

Emeritus Professor Joseph Narotsky has rejoined the Education Department Faculty as Field Placement Coordinator for Intersession 1999 and Spring 1999.  Please thank him for his willingness to rejoin the faculty in this essential role, a role that he had played several times during his long service to ECSU before his retirement.

Dr. Fred Ashton Begins Position as Language Arts Specialist for the Lebanon Public Schools

Dr. Fred Ashton has left the position as Field Placement Coordinator after service since Fall 1997 and  has begun a new position as a Language Arts Specialist in Lebanon.  He will continue to serve as an adjunct professor in Learning and Teaching during the Spring 1999 semester.

Winter Institute for Future Teachers

The 2nd annual Winter Institute for Future Teachers will convene on Saturday, January 9, 1999 from 9 am to 4 pm in the Classroom Building.   Over 100 high schools students and their teachers from throughout Connecticut are expected to participate in 16 workshops in "A Taste of the Teaching Profession."

Sponsored by the Capitol Region Education Council's Minority Teacher Recruitment Program and the Education Department at ECSU, and organized by Education Dept. faculty members Elsy Negron-Wrang, David Stoloff, Debbie Salih, and Jesse Turner, Carole Mulready, CREC's Director of the Minority Teacher Recruitment Program, undergraduates and graduate students in Ed. Dept. programs, and returning Summer Institute for Future Teacher students, the conference will feature workshops on
Teaching with Passion
Hot Rods
Early Years are Learning Years
Responding through the Arts to Children's Literature
Who's in the Mirror
WWW for Future Teachers
Ho-Hum Crashers
Multicultural Voices
SIFTing through Your Choices
Take a Challenge and Turn it into a Reward
College Battlezone
Murder Mystery
Multiple Intelligences.

The conference will be a day of learning and fun for people interested in teaching and learning.

For more information, please contact Dr. Elsy Negron-Wrang at (860) 465-4554 or Dr. David Stoloff at (860) 465-5501.

Grant Opportunities

United States Department of Education Upcoming Request for Proposals

From Dr. Jack Flynn, Academic Grants Officer

for additional information, please connect to FORECAST OF FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES UNDER THE DEPARTMENT OFEDUCATION DISCRETIONARY GRANT PROGRAMS FOR THE REMAINDER OF FISCAL YEAR (FY) 1999.
http://ocfo.ed.gov/grntinfo/forecast/forecast.htm

or a completer version of the following notes from Dr. Flynn:

Bilingual Education Professional Development

Beginning in FY 99, The Office of Bilingual Education and Minority
Affairs (OBEMLA) will support the Training for All Teachers Grants. With
these five-year grants, institutions of higher education, local
education agencies, and state educational agencies may receive funding
to incorporate courses on instructional and assessment methodologies for
limited English proficient (LEP) children into educational personnel
preparation programs. The invitational priority in FY 99 is for
institutions of higher education that propose to improve their teacher
preparation programs. These courses will be designed for new teachers
that do not plan to become bilingual teachers. Proposals should reflect
a significant change from the previous course offerings. In FY 99, ED
expects to make 18 awards of $200,000 each.

The Department tentatively plans to issue a Federal Register notice on
February 8, 1999, and set an application deadline of March 23, 1999.
OBEMLA's Teachers and Personnel Grants, which support inservice and
preservice bilingual professional development, and the Career Ladder
Program Grants, which support professional development for educational
personnel serving LEP students, will also follow this timeline.

For more information, contact Rafael Ramirez, Office of Bilingual
Education and Minority Affairs, 202/205-5463. Also, see
http://www.ed.gov/inits/FY99/1-biling.html.

Teacher Training

The new teacher training initiatives authorized under Title II of the
Higher Education Act will help strengthen teacher education through a
variety of programs. The Teacher Preparation Partnerships Program will
support partnerships that are committed to strengthening the role of
primary and secondary school educators in effective teacher education
programs. Also, the partnerships will increase collaboration between
departments of arts and sciences and schools of education. A partnership
must involve an institution of higher education with an effective
teacher education program, a school of arts and sciences, and a local
school district in a high need area. The Department will include a
competitive preference to applications that propose a significant role
for private business in the partnership activities.

Another pivotal element of Title II is the State Teacher Quality
Enhancement Grants that will be awarded to states for various activities
to improve the quality of their teaching force. Also, Teacher
Recruitment Grants will be awarded to either states or partnerships (as
defined above) in support of recruitment to reduce shortages of highly
qualified teachers in high need school districts.

For both the partnership and state grants, ED is planning to make
approximately 15 to 20 awards. This would result in an average size
grant of $500,000 to $3 million. ED plans to make about 20 Recruitment
Grants ranging between $371,000 and $500,000 per year for up to three
years.

ED plans to hold workshops between mid-February and early March for
potential applicants. Applications should be available in late January
and will be due in mid-April. Awards will be made in late July. In the
case of partnerships grants, preapplications might be required.

For more information, contact Louis Venuto, Office of Higher Education
Programs in the Office of Postsecondary Education, 202/708-8847. Also,
for background information, refer to
http://www.ed.gov/inits/FY99/1-teach.html.

GEAR UP

The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs
(GEAR UP) initiative is being touted as the Department's signature piece
for FY 99. The initiative will support early college preparation and
awareness activities through both Partnership Grants and State Grants.

Partnerships should involve at least a college or university, a school
district acting on behalf of one or more middle schools in high need
areas and the high school that most of these students feed into, and at
least two additional organizations. States may participate in
partnerships as one of the additional partners. Projects will start
serving students no later than seventh grade, and continue with that
cohort through twelfth grade. Projects must serve at least one whole
grade level of students. Services provided may include mentoring,
tutoring, counseling, staff development, and other activities. The
Department anticipates that the maximum annual federal contribution will
be $800 per student served.

State Project Grants will provide funds to states so they may offer
students early college awareness activities, improved academic support,
and information on paying for college. The proposed programs must be
coordinated with the efforts of schools, local community organizations,
and colleges and universities. States may be part of a GEAR UP
Partnership and receive a State Grant at the same time. However, the two
activities must be coordinated. The Department expects that State Grants
will have a yearly maximum of $5 million, with average awards of $1.5 to
$2 million.

ED expects to have applications available in late January or early
February 1999. Applications will be due 60 days thereafter. Since the
Department is rushing to get this program out, it is possible that the
Web version of the application kit will be available before the hard
copies are available.

The Department is working with a national foundation to conduct ten or
eleven workshops that will be designed to help applicants understand how
to write a GEAR UP proposal and to understand how to put together a
community collaboration. In the meantime, the Department suggests that
potential applicants look at the publication entitled "Yes You Can: A
Guide for Establishing Mentoring Programs to Prepare Youth for Colleges"
for examples of successful mentoring projects. It is available online at
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/YesYouCan/.

See the November 30, 1998 issue of OFP Reports for a more detailed
article on GEAR UP. Also refer to http://www.ed.gov/gearup/. The contact
person is Kendra Brooks, Office of Postsecondary Education, 202/205-2109

Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships

The new Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships (LAAP) Program will
provide competitive grants to partnerships to ensure that high-quality
learning opportunities are available to distance education students.
Eligible partnerships will include two or more independent organizations
adult education programs, school districts, and businesses.

The LAAP Program is being administered by the Office for the Fund for
the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and is being modeled
after the FIPSE Program. As with FIPSE, the LAAP competition will make
use of the two-stage peer review process. All applicants must submit a
five to seven page preliminary application. The preproposals will be
reviewed by both external field reviewers and FIPSE staff. Then, FIPSE
will invite back a select group to submit final proposals. Currently,
the Department anticipates awarding a combination of larger grants,
perhaps around $1 million, as well as some smaller planning grants.

The guidelines will not be limiting. ED will accept proposals from areas
other than those that will be highlighted in the guidelines. ED will be
looking for innovative proposals that are creative and think of new
populations that can benefit from distance learning. As with all the new
programs, strong partnerships are essential.

ED expects to have application guidelines available around January 18,
1999. In February, the department plans to offer three technical
assistance workshops on this program. Preliminary applications will
probably be due around April 2, 1999. In May, FIPSE will mail
invitations to those asked to submit final proposals. Final applications
will be due approximately June 18, 1999.

Refer to http://www.ed.gov/inits/FY99/1-learn.html for additional
information. The contact for this program is Brian Lekander, Fund for
the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, 202/708-5759

Technology Training for Tomorrow's Teachers

The FY 99 appropriation for Educational Technology includes $75 million
that will be used to promote better preservice technology training for
teachers. The Department hopes that this program will complement the
Teacher Training Programs (as described above).

The program is focused on reaching out to the teachers who will be
entering the classroom in 2000 and 2001. These funds will be used to
help create a new training infrastructure that will focus on how to use
technology in the classroom; they will not support the purchasing of
equipment.

The Department has not made as much progress in planning this program as
with the others. Therefore, details are rather limited. It is clear,
however, that ED hopes to foster collaborations between higher
education, elementary and secondary schools, and the private sector.
Projects should take innovative approaches to develop effective models
that can be adapted and replicated. Applicants must demonstrate a strong
strategy and commitment. Some matching should be demonstrated.

The Department considers this program to be a short-term strategy for
energizing and building the capacity of teacher education. ED
anticipates that this program will only last a few years, until the
community takes over the full responsibility in this area.

Staff will be assigned within the next few weeks. Applications should be
available in February or March and due in spring. Awards will be out in
the summer. It is possible that some national foundations will sponsor
technical assistance workshops.

See http://www.ed.gov/inits/FY99/1-tech.html for more background
information. Also, contact Ray Myers for additional information, Office
of Educational Technology, 202/205-9942
******
***
UNIVERSITY RESEARCH GRANT GUIDELINES - 1999 COMPETITION
***

The University Grants Committee invites full-time faculty to apply for a grant
under Article 9.10 of the CSU-AAUP Collective Bargaining Agreement.  Grant
applications are due no later than 5:00 p.m. on February 16, 1999 to the
campus representative listed in the guidelines, which may be found at
http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/news/CSUgrant99.html.

Requests for Proposals were also mailed out to all faculty at the end of December.   David Stoloff would copy his RFP for you.

Submit proposals to

ECSU, Dimitrios Pachis, Pachis@easternct.edu

or faculty representatives:

Elena Tapia, Tapiae@ecsu.ctstateu.edu
5-5078, Linguistics (English)

Leslie Ricklin, Ricklinl@ecsu.ctstateu.edu
5-5229, Education  [Congratulations and thanks on your service on this committee.]

Please contact David Stoloff at (860) 465-5501, email: stoloffd@ecsu.ctstateu.edu if you have any questions or comments on this newsletter.