Warner Pacific University is pleased to announce it has been awarded a second five-year, multi-million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education. In October of 2023, WPU was the first four-year university in Oregon to receive a $3 million grant under the Department’s Title V Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program. The recently awarded $3.2 million Hawkins Program grant is under Part B of Title II of the Higher Education Act of 1965. The Hawkins Program aims to increase, and retain, the number of well-prepared teachers from diverse backgrounds.
“As a proud Minority-Serving and Hispanic-Serving Christian university, we are grateful to be the only four-year university in Oregon to receive this award,” said WPU President Dr. Brian Johnson. “It will help us further our vision to support diverse teachers that represent students in the communities they serve.”
WPU is Oregon’s most diverse university, with federal designations as the state’s first four-year Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI). Roughly 61% of WPU’s traditional undergraduate students identify as students of color, including 32% who identify as Hispanic. WPU has many strong partners across the educational pipeline and will collaborate directly with three K12 public school districts and three community colleges across the region to achieve the ¡Adelante! Project goals and objectives.
With the support of the Hawkins Program grant, WPU aims to increase the number of fully certified bilingual, and or multilingual teachers.
WPU has established five project goals for its program ¡Adelante! A Project to Propel WPU’s Hispanic Servingness & Diversify the K12 Teaching Workforce:
- Prepare students for teaching careers in high-need, hard-to-staff fields, including Special Education and dual language/bilingual education, through the development of an ESOL Endorsement and a rigorous and supportive teacher preparation pathway;
- Create a new, highly flexible, inclusive, and affordable bachelor’s degree program with licensure and special education endorsement;
- Support current students, graduates, and employees in area schools to attain the Oregon State Seal of Biliteracy;
- Strengthen partnerships with community colleges and Portland Public Schools to strengthen the education-to-career teacher pathway, and
- Foster a supportive ecosystem that mitigates barriers to access, retention, completion, and successful in-field employment.
To help with retention, post-graduate support includes mentoring for new teachers after they’ve completed their student teaching and have been hired into permanent positions.
“This is a huge game changer for us,” said Kevin Spooner, Associate Dean of Education. “We’re hoping to do a lot of things with this grant that we’ve envisioned but haven’t had the capacity to do. We even have course descriptions ready to begin course development work. We were just waiting for the funds.”
Several organizations, including local colleges and K12 districts, submitted letters of commitment to the U.S. Department of Education emphasizing their support for and interest in furthering collaborations with WPU in these efforts.
“This is not work we do alone,” said Dr. Johnson. “We are grateful to the many collaborators who submitted letters of commitment in support of WPU receiving this grant, and we look forward to expanding our partnerships.”