Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education
final spring 2007 colloquium set for April 18

COLLEGE PARK, MD (April 2007) –Setting high standards and increasing academic opportunities—including Advanced Placement (AP) courses— for Maryland's African-American males will be the focus of discussion for the final spring 2007 colloquium hosted by the College of Education's Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education (MIMAUE). Professor James T. Fey, Ph.D., Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Roni L. Jolley, Ed.D., Maryland State Department of Education, will present on issues and promising practices that can be implemented for the purpose of increasing educational achievement in this demographic. The session begins 4:30 p.m. in 0220 Benjamin Building.

James Fey

In addition to his appointment with the College of Education, Fey is also a professor in the Department of Mathematics and serves as director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). His scholarly interests delve into the development and evaluation of innovative middle and high school mathematics curricula. Fey is currently a principal investigator on the NSF-funded Connected Mathematics and Core-Plus Mathematics projects.

Roni Jolley

Jolley is The College Board staff liaison at the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). As an advocate and public spokesperson for the AP Program, she works closely with The College Board staff at the Middle States Regional Office, Maryland school districts and school leaders, community and business organizations, as well as parents and students on expanding access to rigorous academic programs in targeted schools and districts with high proportions of students from low-income families, African-American, Latino, and rural students. Jolley has over 25 years of experience as an educator, having worked as a special education teacher and speech pathologist. Prior to assuming her current duties at MSDE, she also served in leadership and adjunct faculty positions at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and Morgan State University.

This semester, each of the MIMAUE colloquia sessions focused on a recommendation made by the Task Force on the Education of Maryland's African-American males in a report issued December 2006 by the Maryland K-16 Council. All are invited and encouraged to attend this final session of the spring 2007 series.

"I would hope that all faculty and students would read the K-16 report and wherever they can enter into the debate or spring into action, they would take that opportunity to do so," said Martin L. Johnson, associate dean for Research, Urban and Minority Education, and director of MIMAUE.

For further information on MIMAUE's annual colloquia series, contact Associate Dean Martin L. Johnson at 301.405.0246 or email mljohnso@umd.edu.

About the Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education

Founded in 2001, the Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education links the faculty and resources of the nationally ranked College of Education with area school districts to support a unified, research-based approach to working with individual school districts to address the minority achievement gap and issues in urban education. Comprehensive initiatives are developed in partnership with local administrators and teachers to target at real-world problems.

The Institute taps into the extensive intellectual capital of the College of Education and focuses faculty research and outreach to support teachers and administrators. The goals of the Institute are to:

• Develop large-scale research programs to evaluate, implement and improve promising practices for increasing student achievement and improving urban schools
• Provide outreach services to help schools identify, implement and evaluate strategies to improve student achievement
• Disseminate research-proven best practices across the nation
• Provide a structure to involve faculty from other colleges and campuses, including historically black institutions, in research collaboration and coordinated research-based K-12 outreach

Through a process of collaborative school reform, the Institute works with schools and teachers to build robust educational climates that support high achievement. Efforts to date have included programs to develop innovative strategies to increase achievement, along with professional development to improve teachers' knowledge and skills and administrators' school management proficiency.

The Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education is an integral component of the research and outreach mission of the University of Maryland College of Education, which ranks 22nd among the top colleges of education in the most recent survey by U.S. News & World Report for 2006. Offering undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees, the College of Education provides research- and practice-oriented programs through its six departments: Counseling and Personnel Services, Curriculum and Instruction, Education Policy and Leadership, Human Development, Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation, and Special Education.

Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education
University of Maryland
College of Education
3119 Benjamin Building
College Park, MD 20742

www.education.umd.edu/MIMAUE