Kent professors receive federal grants

Staff report

KENT

Kent State University professors Brian James Baer and Theresa Minick of the Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies have been awarded two federal government STARTALK grants, totaling $225,000.

These grants support the Regents Foreign Language Academy, a summer language-immersion program for Ohio high-school students and kindergarten-through-12th-grade teachers.

The four-week student program, housed in Kent State’s Honors College, targets new learners of Chinese and Russian from high schools across the state. For 10 days, the academy hosts a professional development program for K-12 teachers of these languages who have the opportunity to observe and teach in the student program.

The summer session of the student academy is followed by an academic-year component consisting of monthly on-site sessions supported by online instruction. Students receive five college credits upon successful completion of the program.

The student academy was founded in 2007 with a grant from the Ohio Board of Regents. Since 2008, the academy has been funded by the federal government’s STARTALK program.

STARTALK is a presidential initiative that seeks to expand and improve the teaching of strategically important world languages that are not widely taught in the U.S. The Teacher Leadership Academy was founded in 2010.

Many alumni of the Foreign Language Academy have continued to study these languages in colleges and universities across the U.S. and to pursue a variety of careers requiring proficiency in a foreign language.