University will work with Hartnell, MPC on course design

California State University, Monterey Bay has received a $500,000 grant from Lumina Foundation for Education. The grant will be used to improve the effectiveness of remedial English and math courses at CSUMB, Monterey Peninsula and Hartnell colleges - courses that are critical to student success at all three schools.

The grant is part of Lumina Foundation's Minority Serving Institutions – Models of Success program. More than 70 applications were received; the foundation funded nine of them.

Several faculty members from each school will work as a team to redesign courses in math and writing. They will share information about curricula, teaching methods and course revisions needed to make the classes align among the three schools. Their work will result in a new curriculum that will be introduced in fall 2010.

Summer institutes for faculty members will be held each of the next three years, culminating in a statewide conference in 2012 that will share lessons learned from the project.

Math and writing are particular obstacles for historically underserved populations - minorities, low-income and first-generation students. The grant will help these students get to college and graduate.

Lumina Foundation for Education works to ensure that 60 percent of Americans are college-educated by 2025. More information about the foundation is available at www.luminafoundation.org