When Mary Ann Rankin stepped down as the natural sciences college dean at the University of Texas at Austin, she said she was most upset about leaving the UTeach program she helped create there. Now the senior vice president and provost of this university, Rankin has the chance to replicate the program here thanks to a grant from the National Math and Science Initiative.
Through a $1.45 million grant from the NMSI aimed at developing a reliable source of qualified STEM teachers, this university is launching the Terrapin Teachers program, which will emulate the nationally recognized UTeach initiative.
Terrapin Teachers will allow students studying STEM subjects to graduate in four years with both a degree in their chosen field and a teaching certification.
“We’re going to have the best UTeach program in the country,” Rankin said. “Sorry, Texas.”
Terrapin Teachers is a collaboration between this university’s education college and the computer, mathematical and natural sciences college. As one of five institutions to receive a grant this year, this university will join a community of 35 schools across the country with similar programs in place, such as the UTeach program operating at Towson University.
“We are proud of the work going on at Towson,”said Lillian Lowery, state superintendent of schools. “But it does make a huge statement to have the flagship campus in the university system also become a participant in doing this work.”
Usually, students have to wait until they’re upperclassmen to get hands-on experience in the classroom, said Arthur Popper, one of the program’s co-directors. Through Terrapin Teachers, first-semester freshmen involved in the program will work at elementary schools as soon as next fall. The immediacy of the experimental learning aspect is what makes the program unique, Popper said.
“I’m doing this for the sake of my grandson, who will be in first grade next year,” said Popper, a biology professor. “Having a young adult come into a classroom who is excited about science and has been taught how to convey that to my grandson — who I think is pretty smart — will make my grandson excited and the person teaching excited.”
Popper said this university likely stood out in the application process because of its capabilities as a research institution. However, University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan had other reasons he thought this university was chosen.
“I had no doubt that we were going to win it because of the quality of the people on this campus,” Kirwan said. “But I have to tell you, in the recesses of my mind, I thought, ‘We’ve got an ace in the hole — we have the woman who created the program; they can’t possibly say no to us.’ And sure enough, they didn’t.”
UTeach has already seen success at the other universities it where was implemented — 80 percent of the program’s 1,600 graduates continue to work as teachers five years after they graduate, Rankin said.
There are 6,000 students enrolled in UTeach programs nationwide, and by 2020, UTeach initiatives are estimated to produce more than 9,000 math and science teachers. That’s nearly 10 percent of the White House’s “100Kin10” goal of producing 100,000 STEM teachers by 2021.
Rankin estimates Terrapin Teachers will produce about 55 to 75 graduates a year.
“I really believe this program will change STEM education in this state and this country in very positive ways, in ways that really support the new math and science standards and build on some of the incredible programs we already have at the University of Maryland in experiential learning,” Rankin said.
University President Wallace Loh said this country’s biggest challenge going forward is maintaining competitiveness in STEM fields.
“That talent gap must be breached. It must be shortened,” Loh said. “The future of this country — our economic vitality, our health, our quality of life, our national security — depends on having very strong STEM education programs.”
And although this university produces 2,200 STEM graduates a year — the most of any institution in the state — there is still work to be done, Loh said.
“We have to replenish that pipeline. We have to educate the next generation of teachers who are going to produce these STEM graduates. That is why this is so terribly important,” he said. “I think that as a result of UTeach, we will continue to provide leadership in this state and we will continue to provide leadership in this country. This country will once again out-educate, out-innovate and out-compete the rest of the world.”
