The Teagle Foundation’s Board of Directors awarded grants totaling $905,000 through its long-running College-Community Connections program and for its initiatives Pathways to the Liberal Arts and Education for American Civic Life.
The College-Community Connections program supports partnerships between community-based organizations and colleges and universities located in the New York metro region where they collaborate to introduce high school students from underserved communities to liberal arts education. Signature components of the partnerships include participation in seminars led by college faculty and engagement with residential campus life, enriching students’ notions of what college is, where they might attend, and what they might study when they arrive on campus. The Foundation made grants to support partnerships between Fordham University and BronxWorks and Drew University and Harlem Educational Activities Fund.
The Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative supports access to and success in liberal arts education, particularly for students from underserved backgrounds who might not ordinarily attempt a rigorous liberal arts program. The Teagle board approved awards for projects that strengthen access to the liberal arts in the transition from high school to college and from two-year community colleges to four-year independent colleges, as well as projects focused on strengthening the rigor and quality of liberal arts pathways at two- and four-year institutions.
With Teagle support, Washington University of St. Louis, MO will invite underserved high school students to college to study humanity’s deepest questions about leading lives of purpose and civic responsibility. These programs are modeled on the successful “Freedom and Citizenship” program established by Columbia University and the Double Discovery Center under the auspices of Teagle’s College-Community Connections initiative. Washington University will join a set of grantees developing similar programs at Yale University, Villanova University, the University of Rochester, Miami University of Ohio, Ursinus College, and Carthage College. These programs dramatically improve college readiness, admission prospects, and college graduation persistence while building interest in humanistic issues and habits of civic engagement that persist during and after college.
The Teagle Foundation made a number of planning grants under its Pathways rubric to build the pipeline for strong implementation projects. These include grants to Boston University, New York University, University of California Berkeley, and University of California Los Angeles to lay the groundwork to launch faculty-led humanities seminars for underserved high school students; a grant to the ten-member consortium Independent Colleges of Washington to identify opportunities to build statewide pathways for liberal arts disciplines in partnership with the Washington State Board for Community and Technical College; and a grant to SUNY Onondaga Community College to explore different strategies for infusing core texts in the general education curriculum.
The Foundation has added to to its growing portfolio of grants under the Education for American Civic Life initiative with a planning grant award to Rutgers University – Newark to design a coherent, sequential, cohort-building set of general education courses in the Honors College centered around the essential question of what students should know to be informed and effective citizens in their local community.
Finally, the Teagle board approved a special project to support Books@Work, a program that partners colleges and companies to bring faculty-led liberal arts experiences to adults in workplace and community settings.
Grants Awarded
College-Community Connections
Fordham University and BronxWorks
The History Makers Scholars Program
$200,000 over 24 months to Fordham University and BronxWorks on the “History Makers Scholars” program, an intensive five-week experience, to inspire local high school students to strive for academic excellence and to help them envision a college degree as a reality.
Drew University and Harlem Educational Activities Fund
Strengthening Multiple Literacies through the Liberal Arts: A Drew/HEAF Partnership
$200,000 over 24 months for Drew University and HEAF to renew their collaboration under a new, two-week residential model for 20 rising high school juniors and seniors.
Pathways to the Liberal Arts
Washington University of St. Louis
Citizenship and Freedom: From Plato to Maya
$250,000 over 36 months to Citizenship and Freedom: From Plato to Maya, a program that gives promising underserved rising high school seniors from the St. Louis region an opportunity to participate in a three-week summer humanities seminar and a school-year civic engagement program.
Boston University
Launching Knowledge for Freedom
$25,000 over 12 months to lay the groundwork for establishing a program model to bring civic proficiency and college access to underserved students across the country.
New York University
Launching Knowledge for Freedom
$25,000 over 12 months to lay the groundwork for establishing a program model to bring civic proficiency and college access to underserved students across the country.
University of California Berkeley
Launching Knowledge for Freedom
$25,000 over 12 months to lay the groundwork for establishing a program model to bring civic proficiency and college access to underserved students across the country.
University of California Los Angeles
Launching Knowledge for Freedom
$25,000 over 12 months to lay the groundwork for establishing a program model to bring civic proficiency and college access to underserved students across the country.
Independent Colleges of Washington
Washington Pathways to the Liberal Arts
$50,000 over 12 months to identify liberal arts disciplines that are well-suited for developing statewide major-specific transfer pathways for community-college students to independent colleges.
SUNY Onondaga Community College
Developing a Core Pathway to Liberal Learning
$35,000 over 12 months to determine the viability of different strategies to infuse core texts in the general education curriculum
Education for American Civic Life
Rutgers University Newark
The Climate of American Constitutional Democracy
$20,000 over 12 months to design a coherent, sequential, cohort-building set of general education courses in the Honors College centered around the essential question of what students should know to be informed and effective citizens in their local community.
Special Projects
That Can Be Me, Inc.
Books@Work
$50,000 over 12 months to solidify marketing operations and ensure longer-term sustainability.