Students Receive Tuition Rebates through UTeach

From rear left are Alec Bertossa,Josh Ferriero,Derrick Sawyer,Lenny Bernas and Tucker Hunter. From front left are Sam Teehan,Brooke Dillon,Jean Rose,Valorie Myer, Julie Orange (Department of Education) and Dr.Catanese.

Nine Florida Tech students in the UTeach program recently received tuition repayment checks. The students completed their UTeach “Step 1” class, qualifying them for the refund. President Anthony J. Catanese presented the checks, joined by Julie Orange, program director from the Florida Department of Education.

Florida Tech, in collaboration with Brevard Public Schools, earned a grant of $1.6 million over two-and-a-half years from the Florida Department of Education to implement a new teacher preparation program based on the UTeach model. The university is one of only three in the state offering UTeach teacher preparation courses. Students enrolled in UTeach at Florida Tech can earn a science, math, computer science or interdisciplinary science degree and become eligible for secondary teacher certification upon graduation.

The goal of the UTeach teacher preparation program is to increase the quantity and quality of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers in America’s schools. The primary investigators/co-directors of UTeach at Florida Tech are Kastro M. Hamed and Laszlo Baksay. The master teachers are Joe Laub and Ivan Farrell.

The students earning tuition repayment were: Alec R. Bertossa, computer science; Andrew W. Hunter, interdisciplinary science; Brooke A. Dillon, Derrick C. Sawyer and Samantha A. Teehan, marine biology; Joshua A. Ferriro and Valorie N. Myer, mathematics education; Jean Rose, biochemistry; and Leonard J. Bernas, chemistry education.