COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (Aug. 5, 2005) — One of the leading educational publishers in the United States has contributed to a scholarship endowment to honor Betty Roe, a prolific writer and co-writer of textbooks who recently retired from Tennessee Tech University’s College of Education faculty.

Houghton Mifflin, which published several of Roe’s texts concerning reading, literacy and other elementary education subjects, has pledged $2,000 to the fundraising campaign.

“Our alumni have donated more than $4,700 to date to the endowment, which will be used to support doctoral students in our literacy program at TTU, but we need $10,000 for the endowment to be funded and to begin to operate,” said Darrell Garber, TTU’s dean of the College of Education.

As one of the key founders of TTU’s doctoral program in literacy and with a 30-year career, Roe touched the lives and influenced the careers of many teachers, he continued.

“What most impresses me about her prolific publishing history is that she wrote and co-wrote so many of these textbooks while also teaching full-time,” Garber said. “Her course load could never be decreased to accommodate her writing projects.”

She also served as the first director of doctoral studies for the College of Education.
“We consider this campaign to be a real uniting front for all teachers who are TTU graduates. We think it’s something our alumni can really appreciate and relate to,” he said.

The ultimate goal of the fundraising campaign is to secure $1 million by 2007.

For more information or to donate to the campaign, call Bill Cole, assistant development director for TTU’s College of Education, at 931/372-6418.

--Tracey LeFevre
This information posted 12 August 2005