DATE: March 21, 2007

CONTACT: Bob Horton, (864) 656-5127
bhorton@clemson.edu

WRITER: Susan Polowczuk, (864) 656-2063
Susan.polowczuk@clemsonews.clemson.edu

Project Pipeline gets GE Foundation infusion

CLEMSON — The General Electric (GE) Foundation has given Clemson University a $100,000 gift for Project Pipeline. The program better prepares minority students from across South Carolina to pursue college degrees. The gift is the fourth installment of a $500,000 grant that spans five years. Project Pipeline enables teachers to prepare and motivate minority students in the state to improve math skills and to pursue technical degrees in college.
Principal investigator and Clemson associate professor Bob Horton said GE’s funding is critical to the program’s success.

“With the tremendous generosity of the GE Foundation, we are able to reach students who otherwise would not achieve their potential in math,” said Horton.

The program is a comprehensive initiative for K-12 that brings together the strengths of three ongoing outreach efforts -- Clemson’s Emerging Scholars and Math Out of the Box and GE’s Close the Gap -- to maximize the impact in transforming math education in key schools. The program focuses on math curriculum development, teacher training and targeted student exposure to inquiry-based math materials.

Six South Carolina school districts –– Allendale, Bamberg 1, Bamberg 2, Hampton 1, Hampton 2 and Greenville –– partner with Clemson for Project Pipeline. Over the five-year period of the grant, Project Pipeline will impact approximately 350 Emerging Scholars and 38 teachers from six high schools. Through Emerging Scholars, students visit Clemson to experience college life. The program encourages high school students in economically challenged counties of South Carolina to give college strong consideration.

Additionally, GE’s funding supports pilot programs for Math Out of the Box in the Pipeline school districts. Math Out of the Box is a curriculum for student and teacher learning developed within Clemson’s College of Engineering and Science. It was designed to close the achievement gap among elementary students. Improvements have been so positive that demand for the innovative curriculum for kindergarten through the fifth grade is on the rise, said Dot Moss, project director.

Math Out of the Box is written and designed to create hands-on lessons for students and to give educators a structured way to teach math. To date, the program has worked with approximately 150 teachers and 3,600 students in elementary schools in the Pipeline districts.

The GE Foundation (www.gefund.org), the philanthropic foundation of the GE Company, invests in improving educational quality and access and strengthening community organizations in GE communities around the world.