UNT Dallas Campus receives $500,000 grant from Meadows Foundation

DALLAS – The Meadows Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to the University of North Texas Dallas Campus to assist the university in its efforts to develop further its leadership program in educational administration.

The grant provides scholarships for an additional 75 teachers seeking certification as school principals in public schools in Texas. The award also provides $200,000 for the study of at least two longer-standing school leadership programs in New York City and around the country, according to Joe Breshears, executive director of development at the UNT Dallas Campus.

“An already outstanding curriculum will be refined as needed to remain state-of-the-art and at the cutting edge of training programs for school leaders,” Breshears said. “We are grateful to the Meadows Foundation for their investment in this program that will increase the number of new, high-quality principals in our partner school districts and public education as a whole.”

The master’s degree program in educational administration with principal certification at the UNT Dallas Campus has grown rapidly over the past two years. In the fall 2007 semester, graduate admissions increased 205 percent at the new campus, located on Houston School Road near the intersection of I-20 and I-35E.

Most of that gain was attributed to new “cohorts” in the educational administration program. The “cohort” model helps students form a network of support as they progress through a master’s program together. Administrators at the UNT Dallas Campus expect a large influx of students into the program again this fall, especially after the award from the Meadows Foundation.

John Ellis Price, vice chancellor of the UNT Dallas Campus, said the award from the Meadows Foundation lines up with the founding mission of the campus and its stated goal of increasing the number of citizens in Dallas and the North Texas region who hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

“By providing this grant, the Meadows Foundation has enabled us to extend affordable education to even more teachers who will become principals,” Price said. “Good principals instill educational values in students. Those values will promote education and help us achieve our objective of seeing students move on from high school to college. We are delighted that the Meadows Foundation has seen the value in our leadership program for school principals.”