Drury selected for nearly $2M federal grant

The U.S. Department of Education chose Drury University for a five-year, $1.94 million grant designed to give migrant workers and their families increased higher education opportunities at the school’s Monett campus.

The College Assistance Migrant Program grant is earmarked for Drury’s college of continuing professional studies, according to a news release.

Drury plans to use the grant funding to pay the salaries of three full- and three part-time staff members who will work to identify, recruit and support Hispanic students. In addition to classroom technology, such as laptops, and living expenses, such as child care, the funding also will provide leadership training in partnership with the Monett Chamber of Commerce.  

Dubbed Somos - Spanish for “we are” - the Drury program’s first cohort of students - the cap is 20 - will start classes this month at the Monett campus. The program particularly will focus on encourages students to complete degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to the release.

“Drury’s Monett campus has a long history of providing personalized, supportive education to the area’s first-generation college students and the Hispanic community,” said Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols, Somos project director and a professor of Spanish, in the release. “This grant provides the funding to allow the excellent advising, mentoring and educating currently going on in Monett to expand and work more efficiently.

“Providing specialized services to allow new first-year students to succeed at the college level will help these students proceed and persist to graduation.”

Since opening in 2007, the Monett campus has grown to 25 courses from six with roughly 150 students per semester. In the city of Monett, the Hispanic population was 19 percent of the 8,870 residents as of the 2010 Census.