Wells Fargo Awards Grant to Charlotte Teachers Institute for Sixth Consecutive Year

CHARLOTTE – June 17, 2014 – Wells Fargo has awarded a $50,000 grant to the Charlotte Teachers Institute (CTI), an innovative partnership among Davidson College, UNC Charlotte, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS). The purpose of this partnership is to empower classroom teachers through the cultivation of content knowledge, creativity, leadership and collaboration.

“Wells Fargo continues to demonstrate a strong commitment to CMS teachers through CTI.  Focused on intensive, content-rich, and highly collaborative fellowships, CTI provides teachers with significant career development opportunities,” said CTI Executive Director Scott Gartlan.  “We are proud to partner with Wells Fargo to promote high quality teaching.”

Since CTI’s creation in 2009, Wells Fargo has continuously offered support to the program.

“The Wells Fargo Foundation is pleased to continue to support the work of the Charlotte Teachers Institute,” said Wells Fargo Community Affairs Manager Jay Everette. “Our foundation has designated education as one of our primary focus areas. We believe that education is one of the most important investments we can make in our country’s future. Wells Fargo is responsible for promoting the long-term economic prosperity and quality of life for everyone in our communities. If they prosper, so do we.”

This Wells Fargo grant will support CTI’s general programming, including seminars that started in April and run through December. 104 classroom teachers participating in these 2014 seminars collaborate with professors from UNC Charlotte and Davidson College to create 15-25 page curriculum units. These units will reach more than 15,000 students in 2014-2015.

About Charlotte Teachers Institute

Through seminars led by UNC Charlotte and Davidson College faculty, CMS teachers learn new content, work collaboratively with other teachers, and develop new curricula for their students. Teachers serve as leaders in the institute and choose seminar topics they deem most important and engaging for current CMS teachers and their students. To date, more than 350 CMS teachers have participated in CTI seminars teaching more than 70,000 students.

An affiliate of the Yale National Initiative at Yale University, CTI provides high quality teacher professional development led by expert university and college faculty. Programs include seven-month long, content-rich seminars and special events for teachers, as well as community presentations such as the popular Exploding Canons cultural collaboration series. CTI and its partners were recognized by the Council of Great City Schools with its 2013 Shirley S. Schwartz Urban Education Impact Award.

CTI programs are made possible by a joint commitment of resources from CMS, Davidson College and UNC Charlotte and through the generosity of private funding institutions such as the Arthur Vining Davis Jr. Foundations, The Belk Foundation, Piedmont Natural Gas Foundation and the Wells Fargo Foundation. The institute is housed at UNC Charlotte within the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a nationwide, diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.4 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 9,000 stores, 12,000 ATMs, and the Internet (wellsfargo.com), and has offices in more than 35 countries to support the bank’s customers who conduct business in the global economy. With more than 270,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 25 on Fortune’s 2013 rankings of America’s largest corporations. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy all our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially.

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For more information, contact CTI Executive Director Scott Gartlan, 704-687-0078, scott.gartlan@uncc.edu

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools media contact: Kathryn Block, 980-344-0009 Kathrynd.block@cms.k12.nc.us

Davidson College Public Relations media contact: Bill Giduz, 704-894-2244, bigiduz@davidson.edu

UNC Charlotte Public Relations media contact: Buffie Stephens, 704-687-5830, BuffieStephens@uncc.edu