Goals-Graduate Education

Prepare doctoral students for success in research professoriate
TCALL’s Graduate Assistant-Research positions and Barbara Bush Fellowships provide doctoral students with opportunities to engage in research and scholarly activities under the mentorship of the TCALL’s Faculty Principal Investigator and Research Associate. Through these activities, doctoral students are exposed to the research aspects of faculty work—from data collection and analysis, to dissemination of findings through refereed local and national outlets.

Goals-Research

Increase external funding
TCALL’s major grant (The Adult Literacy Clearinghouse Project funded by Texas Education Agency) has increased over seventeen-fold between 1988 and 2010. Other projects have added funding for Barbara Bush Doctoral Fellows and for more substantial administrative responsibilities in The First Lady’s Family Literacy Initiative for Texas.

Increase interdisciplinary partnerships across disciplines and among corporate, state and federal entities.
Within the university and the Texas A&M System, TCALL has made efforts to reach across disciplines and utilize the involvement and expertise of entities such as Texas Agri-Life Extension, with its focus on parenting, health and financial literacy. Through TCALL’s relationship with The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, connections are being formed with elements of the Houston area corporate community that are interested in supporting literacy. On a state level, TCALL activities support initiatives of Texas Education Agency, its adult education office Texas LEARNS, and tri-agency initiatives involving Texas Workforce Commission and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. At the federal level, TCALL coordinates with Texas LEARNS to support initiatives of the federal Office of Vocational & Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education. TCALL’s Adult Literacy Specialist has also represented Texas in important national initiatives: the recent redesign of the Naturalization test for U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services; and the upcoming redesign of the GED Test to reflect 21st century skills.

Utilize discretionary resources to support research initiatives of our faculty
Through supporting faculty time, TCALL’s Clearinghouse Project can reduce faculty teaching load and give faculty associated with TCALL the opportunity to conduct research and to publish in collaboration with TCALL research staff, resulting from project-funded research activities.

Goals-Engagement

Increase use of technology mediated instruction for the purpose of increasing potential students and providing academic enrichment and development for outside constituents
Through participation in national professional development listservs and networks, TCALL identifies and promotes high quality online training opportunities for Texas adult educators and online learning opportunities for adult literacy students as well. Online professional development courses for literacy volunteer instructors have been funded through TCALL’s Volunteer Training Initiative. TCALL’s website hosts the Distance Learning State Leadership Initiative’s web page.

Identify funding strategies for the development and implementation of innovative programs and outreach
Alignment of TCALL’s current activities with the strategic plans of the university, college, and department is one step in a process of creating a strategic plan for TCALL. A major goal of that process is to identify funding strategies to support innovative programs and outreach to and for Texas literacy educators, beyond TCALL’s current funding sources.

Prepared by TCALL staff, February 2011