Jackson Free Press

Belhaven University is partnering with Woz U, a computer coding school that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak launched in 2017, to offer an online computer-coding and software-development course at the university.

Belhaven began developing the Powered by Woz U partnership in December 2018, and the first classes will begin in August 2019, Belhaven University President Roger Parrott told the Jackson Free Press.

The 35-week, 16-hour program is exclusively online and provides technical training in programming languages such as HTML, C# Foundations, JavaScript and more.

Students who complete all 16 credit hours before Jan. 1, 2021, will be eligible to receive a tuition scholarship for the remainder of their associate or bachelor's degree studies at Belhaven, and can also take additional Woz U continuing education refresher courses at no cost, Kevin Russell, vice president for enrollment at Belhaven, told the Jackson Free Press.

"We are excited to offer this program because students that complete the training with Woz U through Belhaven will have accumulated computer-based skills that are immediately marketable," Russell says.

The total cost of enrollment in the Powered by Woz U program is $13,200. For more information about the program, visit woz-u.com/Belhaven.

MSU to Operate Teacher Training Program in Meridian

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation recently gave Mississippi State University's Meridian campus a $198,000 grant to operate a new teacher-training program that is the first state-run initiative of its kind in the United States, a release from MSU says.

The nonprofit National Center for Teacher Residencies developed the Mississippi Teacher Residency program, and the Mississippi Department of Education will administer it.

MSU-Meridian will train 12 teacher assistants from Jackson Public Schools in fall 2019. The MTR program will also train teacher cohorts from Sunflower County, Gulfport and Ocean Springs later this year.

The two-year program is free and will allow participants to earn a bachelor's degree in elementary education. Graduates will be eligible to teach any subject in kindergarten through sixth grade; English, mathematics, science and social studies to seventh and eighth grade; and special education in kindergarten through eighth grade.

MTR administrators plan to graduate 150 new elementary teachers over four years at MSU-Meridian and two other training sites at William Carey University in Hattiesburg and Delta State University in Cleveland, MSU's release says.

JSU Music Professor to Conduct for Venezuelan Orchestra

Alfred Duckett, a Greenville, S.C., native who has served as associate professor of music at Jackson State University since 2014, will perform as a guest conductor for the Orquesta Sinfonica de Falcon at the Omar Hurtado Theater in Coro, Venezuela, on Friday, July 12. Coro is the capitol of the Falcon state on the country's western coast and is one of the oldest cities in the region.

The Orquesta Sinfonica de Falcon is a production of El Sistema, a nonprofit music education program that the late Jose Antonio Abreu, a Venezuelan orchestra conductor and politician, established in 1975. El Sistema launched the Orquesta Sinfonica de Falcon in 2002.

Duckett previously attended a conducting symposium in Venezuela in summer 2018. The orchestra has also already invited Duckett to return as a guest conductor in 2020, a release from JSU says.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated that Harvard and Yale were also partnering with Woz U. Woz U is not partnering with those institutions. We apologize for the error.