Two More Dual Enrollment Master Upskilling Cohorts Conferred 

Area high school English teachers in the National University English master’s cohort pose with Fresno City College Interim President Marlon Hall at a celebration held by the Fresno K-16 Collaborative in March.

Two more cohorts of National University graduate students participating in the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium Dual Enrollment Upskilling Teachers Master’s Program in English completed M.A. degree requirements last month and were conferred master’s degrees June 19.

The Master’s Upskilling Program for area English high school teachers, which addresses equity and access issues, is an innovative CVHEC project that could benefit thousands of the region’s dual enrollment students by providing more high school teachers with a post-baccalaureate degree to teach college classes.

It launched in 2021 funded by grants from the Fresno K-16 Collaborative in partnership with National University. In the first of three cohorts last year, 17 Fresno-area high school English teachers earned their National University M.A. degrees in December.

For the current second and third cohorts, 36 candidates who completed the degree requirements on May 28 were conferred master’s degree this month but commencement ceremonies are set for sometime in September 2022 and May 2023, said Eddie Cunha, director of the National University-Fresno Center. Dates will be announced later, he added.

CVHEC and the Fresno K-16 collaborative have also been funded a similar Dual Enrollment Upskilling Teacher’s Master’s Program in Mathematics in partnership with CVHEC member-institution Fresno Pacific University.

And, CVHEC is working to expand the Master’s Upskilling Program throughout its nine-county region beginning with the South Valley where a $18 million statewide competitive grant awarded to the Kern Regional K-16 Education Collaborative to improve student progress from high school to postsecondary education includes $1,830,500 for CVHEC’s “Dual Enrollment Teach Up-skilling Pathway – MA degrees for English and Math High School Teachers” Program. Like the Fresno program, the Kern upskilling project will produce, over three years, up to 100 qualified dual enrollment teachers to teach English and Math.

See:

• ‘Dual Enrollment Upskilling Teachers Master’s Program’ Advances Equity (CVHEC e-Newsletter January 2021)
• Dual Enrollment Master Upskilling program: first cohort conferred degrees (CVHEC e-Newsletter December 2021)
• CVHEC Teacher Up-skilling Program for Master’s Degrees will Boost Dual Enrollment in South Valley Via Kern K-16 Collaborative State Grant (CVHEC e-Newsletter June 2022)
• https://bit.ly/CVHEC–MastersUpskilling-Bee (Fresno Bee June 6, 2022)