Professor Leonard Baca of the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Education has been awarded a Martin Luther King Jr. Business Social Responsibility Award for his work as director of the campus BUENO Center.
The annual award recognizes individuals and businesses for their commitment to the values of Martin Luther King Jr. Past recipients of the award include former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, Bruce Randolph and John Echohawk of the Native American Rights Fund. Baca will receive the award Jan. 12 at a luncheon in Denver.
The BUENO Center was established in 1976 to improve educational opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse students through teacher training, research projects and staff development and training.
Since its creation, the center has brought in about $57 million in private and federal funding, according to Baca. With those funds, center programs have helped more than 10,000 migrant farm workers graduate with GEDs and assisted with the education of 1,200 bilingual and English as a Second Language teachers. The center also has helped produce 90 doctorates in bilingual-multicultural education.
Baca's research focuses on bilingual teacher education and bilingual special education. He is currently the co-principal investigator for a research grant from the U.S. Department of Education to study the Spanish version of the Colorado Student Assessment Program, or CSAP, test.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Business Social Responsibility Award is sponsored by 15 Front Range chambers of commerce and other partnerships, councils and bureaus.
For more information about CU-Boulder's BUENO Center visit the Web site at .