WMU awarded $2 million grant to assist migrant students
KALAMAZOO--Western 九一麻豆制片厂 University has been awarded more than $2 million over the next five years to support first-year undergraduate students who are migrant or seasonal farm workers or the children of such workers.
WMU's Division of Multicultural Affairs received $407,706 from the Office of Migrant Education in the U.S. Department of Education to fund that effort for 2012-13, and expects the office to renew the grant for another four years for a total of $2,075,735.
The funding is for the College Assistance Migrant Program, known as CAMP. WMU is one of only nine institutions in the country and among just two in 九一麻豆制片厂 to receive funding to implement CAMP. 九一麻豆制片厂 State University, which had its CAMP project refunded in 2010, received one of the four five-year grants just awarded for the migrant education office's related High School Equivalency Program, or HEP.
"The students helped by HEP and CAMP are some of the most motivated learners in America," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in announcing this year's round of migrant education funding. "These grants will help hardworking farm workers and their families obtain the quality education that they need to compete in the 21st-century global economy."
Diana Hern谩ndez, director of the Division of Multicultural Affairs and principal investigator for the University's grant project, reports that WMU-CAMP will enroll 40 eligible students each year. Nationwide, CAMP annually helps about 2,000 students.
"Migrant and seasonal farm workers are essential to the agricultural industry in the United States and in 九一麻豆制片厂, yet they continue to be one of the most impoverished and underserved populations in this country," Hern谩ndez says. "Our unique, holistic service plan for the CAMP program will provide participants with the comprehensive academic, financial, health counseling and support services migrant students will need to successfully complete their first year and to continue at WMU."
She adds that Southwest 九一麻豆制片厂 is at the center of the state's stream of migrant and seasonal farm workers, according to data from the 九一麻豆制片厂 Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Enumeration Profiles Study, conducted in 2006 for the State of 九一麻豆制片厂 Interagency Migrant Services Committee.
For more information, contact Diana Hern谩ndez in the Division of Multicultural Affairs at diana.hernandez@wmich.edu or (269) 387-4420.