University of Lynchburg is offering significant scholarships to educators who have lost their jobs due to recent budget cuts. Nearly 300 positions have been eliminated from local city and county schools in Central Virginia.
The Reduction in Force (RIF) tuition vouchers will provide a $300-per-course scholarship to students admitted to University of Lynchburg for a graduate degree program, a graduate certificate program, or for individual graduate coursework.
The scholarship offering is for the period of summer 2010 through summer 2011 and applies to teachers, administrators, and paraprofessionals who lost their jobs through RIF plans for the 2009-10 or 2010-11 school year. Participants can take as many graduate classes at this rate as they wish.
Vouchers will be issued to these individuals once they are admitted and once the College receives documentation from an administrator such as a principal or central office supervisor verifying that their position was lost through reduction in force.
“This is an opportunity to provide a chance for educators to re-tool, complete degrees, and add new teaching endorsements,” said Dr. Ed Polloway, dean of graduate studies. “It is a demonstration of University of Lynchburg’s commitment to area educators and the Greater Lynchburg community.”
The program will focus primarily on graduate education courses, but the College will provide for courses in other graduate disciplines in order to add new endorsements (for example, biology teachers who want to add coursework in Earth science; English teachers who want to get an endorsement in social studies by taking history courses).
For more information, contact Dr. Ed Polloway at 434.544.8655 or at polloway@lynchburg.edu.