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URBAN EDUCATION STUDENT JOSUE MONREAL WINS THE TEXAS COUNCIL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS SCHOLARSHIP

(Houston, Texas, February 15, 2007)   Work in construction and welding at the Texas City refineries is a job with good pay, but is it meaningful?   According to Josue Monreal, it is just a job.   He wants to make a difference.   That is why Monreal decided two years ago to make the necessary sacrifices to come to school full-time to finish the education degree he had begun in 1998.   His sacrifice and commitment are paying off, as his instructor and mentor, UH-Downtown Assistant Professor Carol Bedard of Urban Education, has observed.   She was so impressed by Monreal's efforts and successes that she nominated him for the 2007 Future English Educator Scholarship Award, given by the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts (TCTELA).  

Monreal received his award this January when he attended the TCTELA conference in Dallas, (transportation and fees paid for through the auspices of Dr. Beth Pelz, dean of the College of Public Service.)   Along with the award and celebration came a plaque and the not insubstantial sum of $1,000.

"I was really amazed at how much the scholarship meant," Monreal says.   "I thought it was just something between Dr. Bedard and myself, but suddenly professors I didn't even have were congratulating me!"

It was the first conference Monreal had attended.   He went to workshops, met educators whose books and videos he had studied in his classes, and decided that his final teaching goal was middle school after talking with educators there.

Monreal will graduate in May and take a job for the next two or three years as an elementary school teacher.  

"I hear that male teachers take on more of a role model responsibility for male children.   I hope that's true.   I want to make a difference," he says.

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON-DOWNTOWN
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