Why We Give: Alumna’s foundation supports pipeline for Christian school teachers
Bobbie Solley (BS ’79) wants to change the world through Biblical education.
Janel Shoun-Smith |
To say that Bobbie Solley (BS ’79) is passionate about teaching is an understatement.
The long-time education veteran has taught school-age and college-level students in multiple states, has worked in various academic roles in higher education and has even taught teachers around the globe as the international education director for Healing Hands International.
“I believe teaching is one of the most noble professions one can enter. To shape and mold the life of a child is the greatest gift one can experience,” said Solley, “And when I discovered that I could impact teachers who would then impact hundreds of children, my passion for teaching increased.”
Solley had been teaching teachers in Texas, at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, at Lipscomb and through Healing Hands since 1986, but in 2015, she began supporting the educational needs of children in a new way—through her own foundation.
The Bobbie Solley Foundation supports literacy programs in the schools of Peru, job skills programs in Nairobi, Kenya, school supplies for Honduran students and educational training for families, among other programs.
In 2023, the Solley foundation contributed to the Lipscomb Christian Educator Program, a pipeline initiative to fill teacher shortages and preparation gaps in K-12 Christian schools. The university enrolled its first cohort to create a pipeline of specially-trained teacher candidates for faith-based schools in August 2022.
“I wanted to be able to support a program that trains teachers in the Biblical worldview and how they can draw on that worldview in the classroom,” said Solley. “That’s why I wanted to give to this particular program.”
The grant from the foundation allowed Lipscomb to designate Suze Gilbert, associate professor of education, as the program director and to oversee developing a curriculum.
Through this program, aspiring teachers are recruited from Middle Tennessee’s Christian schools to receive training leading to licensure and then return to the recruiting school to teach. Recruited teacher candidates receive a 50% tuition discount on the graduate-level courses. This fall, six teachers from Lipscomb Academy, Mount Juliet Christian Academy, Columbia Academy and Middle Tennessee Christian School began coursework in the pipeline program.
In addition, interested undergraduate education majors can earn a Christian Educator Program designation on their transcript. These students may have extra experiences in class that highlight how to achieve Biblical learning objectives as well as the state’s learning objectives, faith-based professional development experiences, a mentor relationship with a Christian school educator and guaranteed placement in at least one Christian school for a practicum experience, said Gilbert.
Twenty-one undergraduate students are currently working toward the Christian Educator Designation.
As the nation suffers from a teacher shortage, the nation’s Christian schools are suffering from that shortage as well, said Gilbert. The shortage widens the gap these schools experience as they hire teachers who may not have been trained specifically to teach in a Christian setting, she said.
“As a faith-based institution with one of the top teacher preparation programs in Tennessee and in the nation, Lipscomb is uniquely positioned to partner with Christian schools,” said Gilbert.
Solley, a former adjunct professor at Lipscomb, certainly saw the potential for Lipscomb to impact generations of the future.
“Besides Jesus, the single thing that will turn nations and countries around is education,” said Solley. “Children will grow up to be better decision-makers and thinkers.
“My goal from the very beginning has been to help teachers understand a more effective way to teach children to read,” said Solley, who created the Middle Tennessee Writing Project in 2005 and has published two children’s books herself. “I want children to read for many reasons, but my main reason is so they can come to know the Bible and understand what Jesus calls them to be.
“With reading comes understanding, and with understanding comes change.”