UTEP awards volleyball’s Alyssa Sianez $2,500 in tuition from the College Football Playoff Foundation & Dr. Pepper
EL PASO, Texas - UTEP Athletics announced on Wednesday that volleyball’s Alyssa Sianez has been awarded $2,500 in tuition from the College Football Playoff (CFP) Foundation and Dr Pepper.
Sianez is a sophomore majoring in mathematics.
This season she has helped UTEP equal its best record (8-1) through nine matches in program history.
The starting libero leads the teams in digs (139, 3.9 digs/set) and is fourth in assists (28).
As a freshman, Sianez played in 56 sets across 15 matches.
She paced Conference USA in three-pass percentage (2.44), which quantifies the efficiency of a serve-receiver to put the ball at middle and front of the net for the Miners' setters.
"Winning this award means so much to me because I'm being recognized not only on the court but off the court as well,” Sianez said. “This shows that my hard work has really paid off. I will be using the grant to further my education so I can do better for myself and my supporters."
This is the second year of the Go Teach Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway which is part of a collective six year effort between the CFP Foundation and Dr Pepper awarding more than $1.5 million in tuition to student-athletes looking to become teachers.
This fund is in addition to Dr Pepper’s Tuition Giveaway program and includes all 10 FBS conferences and the University of Notre Dame.
Each year, up to 130 total student-athletes will be awarded $2,500 in tuition, and ten grand-prize recipients will receive an additional $10,000 tuition grant – one student per conference.
“We need more teachers in the pipeline to support the growing need for a diverse and well qualified teacher workforce,” said CFP Foundation Executive Director Britton Banowsky. “Our Go Teach project is an important initiative to us as we encourage student-athletes, who we know make amazing leaders, to pursue careers in education. Dr Pepper’s tuition support will go a long way to ensure we have great teachers in the future.”
The CFP Foundation and Dr. Pepper are dedicated to growing the Go Teach initiative to place qualified teachers in classrooms across the nation.
Launched in 2018 through a pilot program at the University of Texas at Austin, the Go Teach initiative quickly expanded to a dozen schools by the end of 2019.
Today, more than 15 schools are participating in the Go Teach program and identifying creative ways to help student athletes move into the teaching profession.
“Dr Pepper has partnered with the CFP Foundation since 2015, and we are proud to expand our relationship to help even more student athletes realize their dreams of becoming a teacher,” said Derek Dabrowski, Vice President of Brand Marketing for Dr Pepper. “Dr Pepper is synonymous with college football. This year has looked different than most due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is why it’s more important than ever that we support students with big dreams that need the help in realizing them.”
The CFP Foundation is the largest sports entity supporting K-12 educators in America.
For more information about the CFP Foundation, visit cfp-foundation.org.
