Gift to create UCI position
An anonymous donor has given UC Irvine $2.5 million to create a
faculty position in the department of mathematics. The new
professorship will help fulfill Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pledge
to increase the number of science and math teachers in California’s
public schools.
The gift, made through the California Community Foundation, is the
largest ever given to UCI to establish an endowed chair -- an
academic office funded by an outside source. UCI officials said that
the campus plans to start advertising for the position in the coming
weeks and hopes to have it filled by summer of 2006.
The role of the new chair will be to help train undergraduates who
want to pursue careers in K-12 education. Under Schwarzenegger’s
California Teach program, which the governor announced in May,
University of California undergraduates may earn both a bachelor’s
degree and a teaching credential in four years. The program also
extends to the California State University system.
UCI, along with the other campuses statewide, will begin rolling
out the program in phases later this year.
“This initiative is a revolution among research universities,”
said Ronald Stern, dean of the UCI School of Physical Sciences, which
oversees the math department. “To have research universities assume
responsibility for the training of K-12 teachers is a big deal, and
this chair will certainly assist us in taking a leadership role in
the production of science and math teachers.”
In the next five years, the University of California hopes to
quadruple its annual production of science and math teachers.
Schwarzenegger launched the statewide program in response to recent
statistics from the National Science Foundation, which placed
California’s eighth-graders last in the country in sciences and
seventh from last in math.
Among the measures that the UC system plans to undertake are
teaching internships and classroom visits for science and math
majors. Much of the funding for California Teach comes from the state
and several corporate sponsors, but the anonymous donation covers a
specific enhancement.
“We were ecstatic,” said Sherry Main, associate director of
communications for the School of Physical Sciences, with regard to
the gift. “It’s the largest donation for a ... [chair] on the campus
of UCI, so we thought that was cutting edge, especially for math.
They’ve been ranked pretty highly in U.S. News and World Report
recently.”
Stern said the university was seeking a prestigious candidate for
the job.
“We’re hoping to have someone identified a year from now,” he
said. “We’re looking for an internationally known figure, so that
might take us two years, but we’re hoping to get it done in one
year.”
Even before Schwarzenegger launched the California Teach
initiative in May, UCI had already taken steps to turn out more
credentialed math and science instructors. Three years ago, the
university obtained a grant from the National Science Foundation to
offer preparatory courses and apprenticeships for prospective
teachers. The university also has contracts with three school
districts -- Newport-Mesa, Compton and Santa Ana -- to mentor
existing K-12 programs.
According to Sue Marshall, UCI’s academic coordinator for
education, the campus’ production of credentialed math and science
teachers has increased since it received the National Science
Foundation grant. Last year, the campus graduated 26 students who
planned to teach math and science in K-12 schools, while the totals
for the last three years were 18, 31 and 30, respectively.
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