UNC Asheville invites North Carolina Teaching Fellows finalists to participate in a workshop and luncheon beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, at UNC Asheville's Highsmith University Union.

The event will provide skills and information that will be helpful in the upcoming regional interviews, as well as an opportunity to meet other finalists and current UNC Asheville Teaching Fellows students. Program speakers include Gladys Graves, state director of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program; James Bell, the 2007-08 North Carolina Teacher of the Year; Jeanne McGlinn, UNC Asheville Education Department chair; Brenda Hopper, UNC Asheville Teaching Fellows Program director; and Chancellor Anne Ponder.

The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program is designed to attract high school seniors into the teaching field. Each year the program awards 500 North Carolina high school seniors a $26,000 scholarship for four years of undergraduate study. In return, students much teach four years in a North Carolina public school. At UNC Asheville, the scholarship funds much of the college experience. Additional scholarship money is provided by the university for Teaching Fellows to visit schools in large American Cities and for travel and study in Cambridge, England. UNC Asheville is one of the 18 public and private North Carolina colleges and universities approved to participate in the Teaching Fellows Program.

For more information or to register, call Brenda Hopper, UNC Asheville Teaching Fellows director, at 828/251-6864.