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TAAF Mission Statement To support the creation and the creators of quality educational and academic materials. To this purpose, TAAF shall endeavor to provide access to financial assistance, human resources, and training in support of textbook writing, and in support of academic research, development and scholarly publication; shall endeavor to enhance the public appreciation and demand for diverse educational and academic materials; and shall work to encourage educational, academic and publishing institutions to produce intellectually rich and varied products consistent with the concepts of universal public education. About TAAF The TAA Foundation was formed in 2003 to raise funds to support projects that benefit text and academic authors. In December 2008, The Text and Academic Authors Foundation (TAAF) partnered with Palm Beach Community College (FL) to create the “Mentor Education Diversity Initiative” (MEDI), a project that will have great potential for realizing measurable and meaningful change in minority representation in textbook and academic authorship. Grounded in national initiatives designed to breakdown barriers to diversity in education (e.g. STEM disciplines), MEDI will provide innovative technology and instructional experiences for students and teachers (grades 8 to 20) and faculty of higher education. TAAF’s partnership with Palm Beach Community College includes writing a cooperative grant application for the Florida Department of Education’s Governor’s Summer Program in support of MEDI. The project, through its MEDI Professional Learning Community (MEDI-PLC), seeks to create a number of mentoring relationships between gifted minority secondary school students and minority faculty in state colleges and universities. These mentoring relationships will involve weekly extra-curricular reading and writing assignments by the faculty to the students, with the results uploaded in a commonly-accessible online database. After six to eight weeks of activity, mentors and mentees will come together for a TAA-sponsored summer workshop on textbook writing. The aim of the workshop will be to produce a model textbook that will demonstrate how such collaborative efforts can result in a publishable textbook. This “blended learning” model has been adopted to enable the participants to create academic works of excellence by scholars of all ages. We also hope that by introducing minority faculty to the process of textbook authoring it will stimulate them to undertake their own textbook writing projects. The aim of MEDI is to produce a model that can be replicated, through foundation and state education grant support, in states across the country. It represents the first significant effort of TAAF to fulfill a long-stated objective to improve the involvement of minorities in the production of text materials for the elementary and high school grades and at the college and university level by seeking to develop textbook authoring best practices in the current generation of minority faculty, while building the basis for generations of minority faculty to come. Recognizing that we live in a global community, and that the United States is increasingly becoming more diverse, TAAF has taken a leadership role to meet the challenge. According to the Southeast Regional Education Board (SREB),“A diverse faculty with a variety of scholarly perspectives will produce a stronger educational experience for all students; colleges and universities must take into account that they have to serve an increasingly diverse student body and have to prepare students to deal with this diversity. The faculty should reflect this diversity; soon after the beginning of the next century, one in three Americans will be of ethnic minority background, and by 2050, according to projections, one in two Americans will be an ethnic minority. The nation’s economic health will depend upon whether these people are a successful and integral part of society.” Because MEDI's focus is to learn and practice scholastic authorship skills over a measurable and meaningful period of time by means of repeated-engaged learning experiences with a college-level mentor educator, diversity in education is fostered by receiving instruction and practice in the elements of knowledge generation: collaborative networking; community outreach; scientific authorship; and mentoring. Overall, these comprise the backbone of a new economy for equity in learning. Gifts to the TAA Foundation (a 501c(3) charitable organization) are tax-deductible to the donor to the extent permissible by law. Help TAAF secure its future! Make a gift to the Foundation today! Governor's Summer Program It is with great encouragement to announce that Palm Beach Community College (PBCC) in collaboration with its partner, Text & Academic Authors Foundation has won a Governor’s Summer Program (GSP) grant award. For details about GSP and TAAF’s mentor-protégé activities go to: www.taafonline.net/TAAF_gov_science_prog.pdf (see pages 1, 12-13, 29, 31-32, 36, and 38 for description of tasks to be provided by TAAF Mentors.) TAAF Annual Giving Societies The following annual giving societies honor donors who make annual gifts to support the TAA Foundation. Leadership Giving Society $5,000 and up
Founder's Society $1,000 to $4,999
President's Society $400 to $999
Director's Society $100 to $399
Supporter's Society $1 to $99
TAAF Cumulative Giving Society Membership in the TAAF Cumulative Giving Society is based on lifetime gifts to the Foundation. As your giving grows, you will move up in levels. Mike Keedy Society $10,000 and up
1987 Society $5,000 and up
Other Cumulative Giving Categories: $4,500 to $4,999 TAAF Legacy Society
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Questions? Call TAAF at (727) 563-0020