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Dateline: 4/1/2009

GONZAGA UNIVERSITY NEWS RELEASE
Dale Goodwin, Director
Peter Tormey, Associate Director

Murdock Trust Award to Benefit Wellpinit Teaching

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust of Vancouver, Wash., has awarded a grant of $15,000 to Gonzaga University. This award will enable Bree Reynolds, a science teacher at Wellpinit High School in Wellpinit, Wash., to form a partnership with Gonzaga biology Assistant Professor Brook Swanson to conduct research during the next two summers in Gonzaga’s biology department.

Brook Swanson
The title of the research is “Study of High-Performance Biomaterials.” The award includes funds to attend two national Partners in Science conferences where Reynolds will share the results of each summer’s research.

This grant has been awarded through a competitive process in the Partners in Science Program at the Murdock Trust. Applications were accepted from high school teachers and mentors from a five-state region to conduct summer research. The primary goal of the program is to provide high school science teachers with opportunities to work at the cutting edge of science, and thus to revitalize their teaching and help them appreciate the use of inquiry-based methods in the teaching of science. The selections are based on the qualifications of the partner members, the quality of scientific research proposed, and the potential of its impact on the high school setting.

The Murdock Trust, created by the will of late Melvin J. (Jack) Murdock, provides grants to organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest that seek to strengthen the region’s educational and cultural base in creative and sustainable ways. The Partners in Science Program is one of its many efforts to do so in its grant-making region.

For more information about the program, contact Bart Hadder, program director, at (360) 694-8415. Professor Swanson may be reached at (509) 313-6692 or via e-mail.