Media Contact:
Dr. Hiller Spires, 919/515-6286
Anna Turnage, College of Education, 919/513-0034

Feb. 21, 2005

Friday Institute to Present Forum on Innovative Education Ideas

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation will present “What’s Innovation Got to Do with It? Theory, Research and Action for Educational Change,” as part of its ongoing Friday Forum series on Friday, Feb. 25th from 3 to 5 p.m. in room 216 at Poe Hall on the North Carolina State University campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Denis Gray, a professor in NC State’s Department of Psychology, will discuss innovation processes in education, and Michael Brader-Araje, founding member of DonorsChoose NC and a member of the Friday Institute’s National Advisory Board, will present DonorsChoose as an example of a social innovation that has changed the formula for how teachers acquire funding for classroom projects.

Gray is principal investigator of a multi-year grant to evaluate the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) program and director of the Social Science Research Program for the Center for Environmentally Responsible Solvents and Processes. He has published extensively on the topic of cooperative research and innovation, most recently as co-author of “Innovation U.: New University Roles in a Knowledge Economy.”

Brader-Araje is founder of truePilot, an early-stage investment firm focusing on high-tech software and infrastructure companies in North Carolina. In addition to founding DonorsChoose NC, Brader-Araje and his wife founded The Michael and Laura Brader-Araje Foundation, which focuses primarily on issues related to education, children, and women’s rights.

Originally launched in 2000 in New York City, the DonorsChoose program allows teachers to submit proposals for any resource that would enhance their students’ learning. Proposals may include requests for books, art supplies, science equipment, computers or a variety of other materials. Individuals across the state and the country can review the proposals and choose to fund the ones they find most compelling. When a proposal is funded, DonorsChoose purchases the materials for the teacher and compiles photographs, student thank-you notes, a teacher impact letter, and receipts for the donor.

NC State College of Education Dean Kathryn Moore and former Govs. Jim Hunt, Jim Holshouser and Jim Martin are members of the DonorsChoose NC board, along with former UNC system president Bill Friday and Erskine Bowles.

Barb Meyer, a kindergarten teacher at Wendell Elementary, will discuss two projects funded by DonorsChoose, “Current Events in Kindergarten” and “Math Trailblazes into Books!”

The Friday Forum is sponsored by the Friday Institute, the Bettye MacPhail-Wilcox Administrative Technology Fund and the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science. The purpose of the forums is to bring educators and the general public together to address educational issues that have a widespread impact.

- turnage -