BARD COLLEGE’S MASTERS PROGRAM IN TEACHING AWARDS FIRST PETRIE FELLOWSHIP TO CAROLE ANN MOENCH AND JEANINE TEGANO $25,000 Grant Part of Unique Partnership with New York City Public High Schools

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Bard College Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program has awarded a $25,000 Petrie Foundation fellowship to two of its students, Carole Ann Moench and Jeanine Tegano. The scholarship is part of a $1 million grant that The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation awarded the MAT Program earlier this year to support the Program’s efforts to develop research and training partnerships with New York City schools and enact meaningful education reform in high-needs urban schools. Bard’s MAT program, which enrolled its first class in June, was designed to change the way teachers are trained and foster lasting improvements in precollege teaching nationwide. As part of the fellowship program, Moench and Tegano have committed to teaching in New York City public high schools for five years after graduating from the MAT Program. Over the next three years, the Petrie grant will enable the Program to meet its goals by helping to establish extensive mentoring and research programs between New York City public high school teachers and MAT students, in addition to providing students with classroom training in the city’s public high schools. Fellowship recipients will spend two days per week in New York City classrooms in the fall and then five days per week for 20 weeks in the spring. Aiming to make Bard’s MAT Program a national model for secondary school education and reform, faculty will evaluate these training and research collaborations to assess their impact on teacher retention and student achievement, and will document and publish their results on a local and national level. Tegano, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, graduate, said she hopes the Petrie fellowship will enable her to draw on the vast cultural assets of New York City to incorporate the arts into her history classroom. "The arts are a vital component to any educational experience because they deepen the meaning students are able to make of their knowledge," she said. "New York City is the ideal place to enhance my training in the arts and to collaborate with other artists, so that my history classroom becomes a place in which students can really question the past in connection with themselves.” Moench, a Bard alumna originally from Houston, acknowledged the challenges of teaching in New York City’s public schools, but said that the collaborative nature of the MAT Program makes those challenges seem less daunting. “I feel strongly that I will be teaching as part of a dedicated team from this program,” said Moench, who will teach English. “Many of us are planning to teach in the city, and Jeanine and I are intent on keeping the team together.” The Petrie grant will provide $25,000 scholarships for 15 students over the three-year grant period. The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation is a private, independent grant-making foundation that began active operation in 2002. The Foundation's mission arises from the belief that education is the key to realizing an individual's potential and his or her ability to become an active, productive, and engaged participant in a democratic society. Therefore, the Foundation's primary focus is on education. In order to carry out its mission, the Foundation assists disadvantaged students with moral and civic character, academic promise, financial needs, and the determination to fulfill their potential; and to assist in the recruitment, training, and retention of teachers, principals, and administrators at every level of schooling, from kindergarten through professional school. Toward this end, the Foundation seeks out, initiates, and supports educational programs that focus on recruitment, training, and retention of quality teachers, principals, and administrators; after-school programs; enrichment programs for disadvantaged youth; scholarship programs for students; and school improvement. Most Foundation grants are awarded as part of programs initiated and founded by the Foundation. The Foundation usually solicits proposals from grantees that have been identified through a careful screening process. The principal focus of grants is in New York City and surrounding areas. The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation is a wholly charitable trust created under the will of Milton Petrie, and is classified as a private foundation under sections 501(c)(3) and 509(a) of the internal Revenue Code. Bard MAT Program Bard’s Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program, which takes a year for students to complete, was established in 2003 to address critical issues in the training of teachers of grades 7-12, such as subject-matter mastery for teachers, integrated clinical training, and the ability of new teachers to advance and implement innovative teaching methods in the classroom. Many secondary school teachers in the United States, for example, do not hold an undergraduate degree in the subject they teach, and rarely in the course of their training are prospective teachers asked to integrate subject matter and pedagogy courses in a clinically meaningful way, or to research and practice new approaches to teaching. The MAT Program builds on Bard’s long history of innovation education, from its Institute for Writing and Thinking teacher-training programs to the groundbreaking Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) in New York City. The core of Bard’s yearlong MAT Program is an integrated curriculum leading to a master of arts degree and teaching certificate in adolescent education in one of four subject areas: English, mathematics, biology, or history. In future years the program will be expanded to include certification in other fields, including art, physics, chemistry, foreign languages, and music. Applicants must have completed an undergraduate degree in liberal arts with a major in the elective discipline. Bard MAT students are required to complete at least six graduate level courses in their elective discipline, while taking education courses that challenge them to apply the results of research and pedagogical analysis to classroom teaching. In each phase of their MAT experience, students must pursue a research question that engages them in the kind of reflective practice that is essential to teaching effectively and growing professionally. Linked to advanced study in their field, the education curriculum helps MAT students to consider how they learn, and how alternative approaches to teaching and learning provide broader access to academic competence. Throughout the 12-month program, all courses are closely integrated with teaching experiences, beginning in the summer as tutors, followed by 140 hours of field experience in the fall and two 10-week sessions of student teaching in the winter and spring quarters. Bard has confirmed partnerships with several local public school districts, including urban districts in Poughkeepsie and Kingston. There are also student teaching assignments and mentoring opportunities at BHSEC and other schools in New York City. Unique to this program, mentor teachers in the public schools are active partners for school change, engaging in their own classroom research as part of their sustained involvement with the MAT program. The course work and fieldwork will be a part of the common curriculum, which is integrated with an active advisory program in which students in small groups are closely supported by a dedicated MAT faculty member through biweekly meetings (and more as necessary) throughout the year. Prospective applicants to Bard College’s new MAT Program should contact Ric Campbell at 845-758-7145 or [email protected] for information and application materials. Visit the Bard College MAT Program website at www.bard.edu/mat. # # # 12/15/04

Website: https://www.bard.edu/mat

This event was last updated on 02-25-2005

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