While much of Rice University’s campus winds down in the weeks following commencement, the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies offers a host of summer programs for both teachers and students through the school’s Center for Education.
“There are few times more special for the Glasscock School than the next few months,” said Robert Bruce, dean of the school. “We get to share in the excitement of commencement, sending Rice graduates out into the world, and no sooner do they depart then literally thousands of teachers and students join us on campus and online throughout the summer. While much of the activity around campus is coming to a halt, this is not so for Continuing Studies. We continue.”
Engaging teacher development programs like the AP Summer Institute, which has served over 10,000 high school teachers over the course of nearly 30 years at Glasscock, aim to create an environment that allows teachers to get the most out of their Advanced Placement workshops and in turn better prepare their students. The AP Summer Institute will also be returning to an in-person format for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with one of the three weeklong options occurring on campus while the other two will be online.
Other Center for Education professional development opportunities include its online AP Preparedness Summer Workshops , which provide educators with the foundational skills necessary to optimize student success, and the School Literacy and Culture (SLC) program’s Summer Institute, focusing on early childhood educators.
Additionally, the Center for Education is also launching a new Rice Education Mentor Certificate program this summer. The initial offering will host 30 experienced teachers from the Houston Independent School District, providing them with research-informed tools and knowledge to become mentors on their campuses and thereby increasing new teacher success and retention.
A wide variety of student programs will also be available this summer, including Creative Writing Camp, a long-standing collaboration between SLC and Writers in the Schools that provides students in grades 6-12 with the opportunity to hone and expand their writing skills through a variety of in-person and online camps.
Other programs and workshops including the Aerospace & Aviation Academy and Precollege Program, as well as the National Youth Leadership Forum Medicine and Navigating the Pathway to College Admissions programs, provide students with unique opportunities to grow their resumes and repertoires.
“In terms of education, most people think of the summer as a time for a well-deserved break,” said Brenda Rangel, Glasscock School assistant dean and director of the Center for Education. “Recharging is certainly necessary, but for many teachers and students this includes summer education activities.
“Over the next few months, we look forward to serving more than 2,000 of them, from teachers learning new research and best practices to take back to their campuses to students digging deep into their passions in camps for aspiring writers, health care practitioners and aerospace engineers. To expose them all to the excellence of Rice is truly exciting.”
To learn more about the Glasscock School and its programs, click here.