UC Awarded $500K to Launch New Graduate Certificates for High School Teachers

With an infusion of a half a million dollars from the state, the University of Cincinnati's McMicken College of Arts & Sciences can offer scholarships to help credential at least 50 area high school teachers to teach college-credit granting courses (

Ohio’s College Credit Plus Program

) to their students from the convenience of their high-school classrooms.

The $500,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Higher Education will allow interested high-school teachers to take the required 18 credit hours of specified graduate work at no cost to them. It will also allow McMicken’s faculty to increase access to coursework in math, history, Spanish, French and English, all of which already offer College Credit Plus credentialing. Math, Spanish, French, and English will be available 100 percent online. The grant will also support the development of graduate Biology coursework at the UC Center for Field Studies, ideal for high school biology, anatomy and physiology and environmental science teachers.

High school teachers will also be able to use scholarship funding to enroll in graduate-level coursework in psychology, communications, political science, statistics and sociology.

“McMicken has always been at the forefront of dual-enrollment initiatives that support college-ready high-school students,” said Lisa Holstrom, senior assistant dean in McMicken and principal investigator on the new grant. “This award allows us to take College Credit Plus to the next level by eliminating the cost of graduate coursework for many high-school teachers and updating and expanding our offerings.”

Holstrom said the new funds will make it easier for high school teachers to access the training they need to teach college-level coursework to their students, thereby allowing more students to enter college with advanced standing. McMicken’s outreach partners include Cincinnati State; Hamilton County Educational Services Center; the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services; the UC College Credit Plus Office and Lorain Community College. 

“We want to engage teachers in high-need districts,” Holstrom said. That includes Cincinnati Public Schools as well as Cincinnati’s Catholic Inner City Schools, among other urban and suburban districts.

Outreach efforts to recruit teachers begin in February 2016, with the goal of credentialing at least 50 high-school teachers by the end of summer 2017. Interested teachers should contact Marilyn Kershaw at 513-556-5810 for more information about admissions and scholarships.