Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education (MIMAUE)

Projects

Institute Spotlight

CPIP Grants
MIMAUE was recently awarded two new grants to help fund the college preparation programs.

Mathletics Summer Program
Mathletics is a summer math camp for rising 6th, 7th, and 8th grade mathematically talented and motivated minority students. Learn more..

College Boot Camp
The summer College Preparation "Boot" Camp is designed to help rising high school juniors and seniors prepare for college. The camp will take place during the second week of July (13-17). 
Learn more..

College Success Inititiative (CSI)

The College Success Initiative (CSI) is designed to promote college retention, persistence, and graduation by serving as a resource portal to undergraduate minority students at UMCP. learn more

Summer College Preparation "Boot"

The summer College Preparation "Boot" Camp is designed to help high school students prepare for college. The boot camp will be offered during the summers to rising high school juniors and seniors. Camp Workshops will include selecting a college, financial aid, essay writing, goal setting, choosing a major and a career path, time management, college budgeting, identifying campus resources and much more. Students throughout the region are encouraged to register for the program. learn more  

College Access & Readiness Projects

The College Access Project focuses on both middle and high school students. For middle school students, the College Access Project (CAP) at Charles Carroll Middle School aims to help students make the connection between middle school academics, rigorous high school courses, postsecondary education, and career choices. Students in the program participate in workshops that provide information about college. At the end of the workshops, students research various colleges and universities and develop a student-run college fair to be held at their school. In addition, CAP often involves college tours for middle school students as well as a summer enrichment activity at the University of Maryland, where students have a chance to further explore career interests and learn about college-going life. 

For high school students, we have the College Awareness through Career Exploration (CACE) program. CACE provides a platform for students to make the connection between college attendance and career choice. Through a partnership with Fairmont Heights High School, students participate in a paid internship in major corporations and companies within the local community. In addition, students participate in an array of activities that will provide them with soft skills and research opportunities. These skills will be used to prepare the students for their internship, their college career, and ultimately their future professional career. To date, over half of our CACE participants have been accepted to college!

For the 2010-2011 school year, the Institute is working with the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) to host a statewide student conference for high school seniors that attend GEAR-UP high schools. This statewide student conference will provide students with an opportunity to engage in workshops that will help students prepare for applying to college and to make the transition from high school to college. Workshop topics will include writing an essay for a college application, completing a college application, funding your college education, and locating resources available on college campuses. A two-day conference will be held in the fall, and a one-day conference will be held in the spring. learn more

In 2010, MIMAUE in partnership with UMCP's School of Public Health was awarded a 5 year NIH grant entitled, "Climbing Up and Reaching Back": Mentoring Support for Research Careers in Biomedical and Behavioral Science. CURB seeks to increase biomedical and behavioral researchers (BBR) from minority and underserved communities. The project aims to: 1) examine the characteristics of high achieving high school students that pursue BBR and 2) assess whether the "Climbing Up and Reaching Back (CURB)" mentoring model facilitates attitudes and self-efficacy for BBR. Eight high schools will be randomly assigned to participate in two treatments to determine the impact of the CURB mentoring model. The intervention condition will offer CURB consisting of three components: 10th grade BBR career exposures, 11th grade college BBR mentoring, and 12th grade BBR work experience. Intervention is aimed at Social Cognitive Theory and Theory of Planned Behavior motivations and framed by the idea that faculty/professional scientists can encourage graduate students to encourage undergraduate students to encourage high school students such that students up the BBR ladder support others to climb the BBR ladder. CURB, project number 1R01GM094574-01, is funded through NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences. More information for CURB participants

Culturally Relevant Teaching and Learning

The Institute has established professional development aimed at exposing and providing culturally relevant strategies to teachers. Most often this pd has come in the way of graduate level courses. While the courses are relevant to any teacher, the focus is on providing culturally relevant strategies to mathematics teachers. The Institute has won a couple of College Prep Intervention Program (CPIP) grants from the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) to provide culturally relevant teaching to mathematics teachers in Prince George's County Public Schools. The Institute has also recently completed a grant under the Improving Teacher Quality Grant (ITQ) from MHEC to provide two courses on culturally relevant teaching and mathematics to paraeducators in Prince George's County and Montgomery County. Learn more information about these courses.

The Institute is also hoping to expand its offering of professional development through a series of one day conferences with a component focused on Culturally Relevant Teaching (CRT) and then workshops where teachers are able to focus in on applying CRT to a content area. MIMAUE is expecting to launch its first conference Spring 2011 for elementary and middle school teachers. Please check back for more information.

African American Male Achievement Program (AAMAP)

The objective of the African American Male Achievement Program is to increase the achievement of African American males. AAMAP is a four-prong program focused on empowering young, black males. The program includes individual mentoring (between African American males), group mentoring sessions, teacher professional development, and parent workshops. The program began in September 2007 with Seabrook Elementary School in Prince George's County.

See more information about the 2008-2009 program, such as the calendar of events, activities, etc.

 

Latino Parent Empowerment Program

The Latino Parent Empowerment Program aims to empower Latino parents by working with schools to provide a parent liaison who will make connections between the school and parents, as well as provide workshops to parents about the American educational system. The program also purports to provide professional development to teachers of participating schools and to create greater cultural understanding and awareness between teachers and the Latino students' home culture.

Alpha Scholars Program

The Alpha Scholars Program is part of the K-16 Partnership Development Center (K-16 PDC). The vast majority of K-16 PDC implemented programs were funded by MIMAUE. The program helps junior and senior high school students with the college application process. Educational Talent Search (ETS) at the University of Maryland is helping to coordinate this program. The program is at Bladensburg High School and Central High School (in Prince George's County) and two high schools in Anne Arundel County.

Team Success™ PDF

Team Success™ is an academic achievement recognition program with the vision of closing the achievement gap. Since 2006, the Institute secured the services of Fred Spence, founder of Team Success™ to provide consulting services that guide and engage the entire student body, staff, and parents to celebrate and encourage students to acquire GPAs of 3.0. Team Success™ was implemented in Central High School in PGCPS.

The Bladensburg Project

The Bladensburg Project was a partnership with Prince George's County Schools that sought to build school district reform capacity as an alternative to state or private school takeover. This program was one of the first K-16 PDC projects. The project focused on providing support and working with interconnected schools in the County, such as Bladensburg High School, William Wirt Middle School, and Rogers Heights Elementary School.

9th Grade Academy

The K-16 PDC worked with Central High School freshmen to provide support during their first year in high school. The mission was threefold: 1) to give students extra help to improve academically and proceed on to postsecondary education; 2) to engage and involve parents in their children's academic success; and 3) to remind parents and the community that the whole community must participate in the raising of a child.

English Initiative

Ongoing professional development focused on the English Curriculum Frameworks and Interactive Reading Materials to Central High School English teachers. A mentoring structure was created with an on-site "master teacher" and former teacher coordinator as the mentor who worked with seven new English teachers.

Spanish Classes for Educators

This course was designed for high school teachers and administrators who work at schools with a steady increase of Spanish-speaking students. This course helps to improve communication between teachers and administrators and students and their families.

The Center for Research on Latino Educational Success (CRLES)

As a center within MIMAUE, CRLES conducted several research and service projects funded by MIMAUE. The Center also provided professional development activities for K-12 and higher education institutions on promoting Latino student success.

The Teachers Integrating Mathematics and Engineering (TIME) Project

The TIME Project, funded by General Electric, worked with middle and high school teachers. Summer engineering institutes were held for educators, where they learned how mathematics and science concepts relate to the field of engineering. The educators took back engineering modules to their classrooms so they had an opportunity to integrate the lessons and laboratories into mathematics and science curricula during the school year. Dr. Richard McCuen, professor of civil engineering in the School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, led the institutes every summer. The program worked with teachers from Prince George's County Public Schools.