Texas A&M-Kingsville Receives $500,000 Grant

Texas A&M University Kingsville

KINGSVILLE (News Release) — The Center for Student Success at Texas A&M University-Kingsville recently received a $500,000 from the United States Department of Education to identify and help students across South Texas who are suffering from learning loss caused by the pandemic.

Dr. Shannon Baker, associate vice president for student success

Dr. Shannon Baker, associate vice president for student success, is the principal investigator for the one-year project, Pilot Program to Address Learning Loss in South Texas to Improve Student Achievement. “This project will rely on strong collaboration between the Center of Student Success, Enrollment Management and the College of Education and Human Performance,” she said.

“Together, these units will work to carry out a program that will help students across South Texas recover from learning loss engendered by the pandemic while providing Texas A&M-Kingsville students with valuable experiential learning opportunities.

“The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on students at all levels. Addressing this issue requires an increased emphasis on instruction to improve student persistence, retention and graduation through both high school and college for South Texas students,” she said.

Baker said the staff of Enrollment Management will identify school districts and community colleges to partner with Texas A&M-Kingsville. Representatives from the College of Education and Human Performance and the Center for Student Success will meet with the partner institutions to identify areas of learning loss.

“To aid students in the partner school districts, staff from the Center for Student Success will train teacher education students. The College of Education and Human Performance will then deploy them to the targeted schools to assist students in overcoming identified areas of learning loss.

“To aid transfer students and incoming freshmen, the Center for Student Success will further develop curriculum for a summer bridge program aimed at helping each population overcome learning loss,” Baker said.

The project will start in the spring semester as partner schools are still being identified. The tutors will be students in the teacher preparation program who will be paid for their work.