Improving education and quality of life in southern Illinois is the aim of several major new grants involving partnerships between SIUC and other public institutions or groups. They include:

• A $913,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to improve bilingual education in southern Illinois.

This grant will provide an opportunity for SIUC’s College of Liberal Arts and College of Education and Human Services to work with the Cobden public schools and other school districts in southern Illinois that have growing numbers of English language learners.

Joan Friedenberg, a professor of linguistics at SIUC who is directing the project, notes that most of that population is Hispanic. "Despite the significant growth in Hispanic families over the past 20 years, there are no certified bilingual teachers in the public schools, and SIUC does not have a bilingual teacher certification program," she says.

The grant provides for:

—Scholarship money for bilingual students to receive bilingual teacher certification at SIUC.

—Stipends for SIUC faculty to receive training to revise current teacher certification courses so that they include more content related to teaching children who do not speak English well.

—Stipends for public schoolteachers in southern Illinois to receive training in how to teach children who do not speak English well.

Mary Montavon of the Cobden public school system is serving as the program’s public school coordinator.
 

• A $409,941 federal grant to improve access to primary health care services in the 16 southernmost counties of the state.

The award is part of a $6.3 million federal initiative to improve health care in the Mississippi Delta region. The funding comes from the Health Resources and Services Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Tess Ford, director of SIUC’s Center for Rural Health and Social Service Development, will administer the grant on behalf of the Illinois Delta Network, a statewide coalition of 18 health and social service agencies.

The grant will make available funds to the 16 southernmost counties of Illinois—classified as part of the economically depressed, multi-state Delta region—for strategies that help more people get the health care they need. That could mean anything from recruiting a certain kind of health care provider to a community, to helping free clinics pay for lab services for uninsured patients.

The rural health center will put together committees made up of Illinois Delta Network members to help the county-level agencies form partnerships and implement programs.

"Demonstrating need and collaboration among agencies will be key factors in the application process," says Ford.
 

• A $400,000 federal grant for community development in low-income neighborhoods in Carbondale.

The three-year grant is from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Outreach Partnership Centers Program. SIUC was one of 24 universities nationwide to receive the funding.

SIUC will work with the Attucks Community Services Board and the city of Carbondale on the grant program, which will provide assistance in five areas: housing, economic and business development, health, education, and neighborhood revitalization.

One of the housing objectives is to expand home ownership in north and northeast Carbondale. Entrepreneurship training and assistance with business startups and expansions will also be provided in those neighborhoods.

Health objectives include expanding outreach in health education and testing through a local health clinic. Expanded tutoring and after-school programs are also part of the plan.

The grant will allow students to get involved with outreach activities. For example, a graduate assistant from SIUC’s College of Education and Human Services will help direct the tutoring program; a graduate assistant from the Black American Studies program will help with the education and neighborhood revitalization components of the grant; and a graduate assistant from the College of Business and Administration will work on economic and business development activities.

This grant will also be administered by Tess Ford, along with Raymond Lenzi, director of the Office of Economic and Regional Development (of which the rural health center is a part).
 

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