Contact:	Jeff Hale, 277-2915 Laurie Mellas-Ramirez, 277-5915
March 29, 2002 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION TO PARTNER IN NATIONAL STUDY WITH HEWLETT-PACKARD The Hewlett-Packard Company recently named the College of Education (COE) its partner in a new $1.3 million nationwide grant program designed to reward and study secondary schools in low-income areas that excel in the teaching of mathematics. Bess Stephens, global director of Hewlett-Packard's Philanthropy and Education division, awarded the COE's portion of the High-Achieving Schools grant, $375,000, at a recent event held at Bernalillo High School. The celebration was held in honor of the company's more than $1.8 million in contributions to six New Mexico educational institutions during the past twelve months. Of this total, more than $700,000 was awarded to UNM, $550,000 to the College of Education and $155,000 to the School of Engineering. The principal investigators for the new COE grant are Viola E. Florez, dean, and Richard Kitchen, associate professor in the department of Educational Specialties. "We're delighted with the news of this important research project, which holds great potential for assisting teachers across the country with improving mathematics education," Florez said. "This was a very competitive national project, and the success of our design was due primarily to two things: The impressive team of UNM faculty pulledtogether by Dr. Kitchen, coupled with the outstanding proposal writing and project coordinating from our COE Director of Development Dr. Jeff Hale." UNM is also one of three recipients of the $180,000 Hewlett-Packard Engineering and Computer Science Retention Grant, newly created in 2002. The grant includes equipment and funding to support professors in the UNM Colleges of Engineering and Education who will create a link between a computer-programming course and introductory physics. Both grant packages include a Hewlett-Packard Wireless Mobile Classroom unit, which will be used for a seminar course, study sessions and academic excellence workshops with minority students. The unit includes 30 HP Omnibook notebook PCs, a digital camera, Officejet all-in-one printer/copies/scanner/fax, MobiLAN One wireless motorized cart from Wireless Information Networks and Mindsurf Discourse instructional delivery software. The grant process is highly selective and UNM's success is a credit to the strength of its programs, Stephens said, noting that the Hewlett-Packard/College of Education partnership is a rare honor. "Typically, this type of award goes to an engineering school," she said at the celebration attended by Governor Gary Johnson and other state leaders. With the High Achieving Schools grant, Kitchen and colleagues Sylvia Celedon-Pattichis, Jonathan Brinkerhoff and Julie DePree will identify seven high achieving, but economically challenged schools nationwide for grant funding. The researchers will work with the schools to integrate the Wireless Mobile Classroom into teaching, especially in mathematics, study the results, and form a new network to share best practices. The High Achieving Schools grant to the COE is the largest in the history of the UNM-Hewlett Packard relationship. Hewlett Packard awarded an initial $150,000 grant last fall to the COE and Bernalillo Public Schools to research technology's impact on teaching and learning and to explore ways to integrate wireless technologies into existing school curricula. Secondary schools that qualify for the High Achieving Grant project may get more information and apply at http://webcenter.hp.com/grants/achieve. ###

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