A national organization is attracting a large number of students motivated to improve the country through philanthropy.
Teach for America, or TFA, works toward eliminating the academic achievement gap that plagues lower-income regions in the United States. A two-year program, TFA places college graduates as teachers in impoverished communities.
The program attracts students from many fields of study, not just education, because the aim is to foster future leaders, said Brendan Rivage-Seul, director of Pacific Northwest recruitment.
Half the students who grow up in the organization’s 26 target regions will not graduate from high school, and those who do can only read and perform math skills at an eighth grade level, according to the organization’s official Web site.
Nick Meyers, a political science and Chinese major, will be placed as a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area next year. The program has two goals, he explained: to place motivated people in districts that need teachers and allow future leaders to experience firsthand the educational inequalities in the country.
TFA attracts members who are motivated to make a positive change in the world. Participants are paid a standard teacher’s salary for the area in which they teach. In addition, participants have the option of getting their master’s degree in teaching while in the program.
“At UO it is just a given that students will do something after college that makes a difference,” said Rivage-Seul, who finished his two years as a TFA teacher in June 2007. “It makes recruitment much easier.”
Katelyn Runyan-Gless, an international studies major with a minor in both economics and anthropology who will be teaching in Philadelphia, is excited to try to make a difference in her students’ lives by giving them encouragement to succeed and finding teaching methods that best help them learn.
This year, 98 students from the University applied to be part of the program. Nationally, only around 21 percent of students who apply are accepted, Rivage-Seul said; the University had a 25 percent acceptance rate into the program this year.
“UO is tending above the national average, and that is because the quality of the students there is really high not just in academics, but in all areas,” Rivage-Seul said.
The first part of the recruitment process is spreading the word about the program and the problems it is trying to address. TFA does this at the University with three student campus coordinators, Rivage-Seul explained.
Jocelyn Noonan, a senior majoring in English and Spanish, has held one of these positions for the past two years. Her job entails spreading the word on campus with class announcements, student groups and advertisements. She will be a TFA participant also in the Bay Area next year after graduation this spring.
Recruiters then meet one on one with TFA hopefuls to answer questions, clear up misconceptions and really explain how the organization works. Once accepted, students undergo seven intensive training weeks during the summer to prepare them for teaching.
Jeffrey Cerveny, a psychology and German major, will be teaching special education for TFA in Los Angeles. He became involved in TFA and its objectives after volunteering with at-risk children at the Lane County Youth Correctional Facility’s school.
“It is great to see the change and improvement in these young adults and to know that I helped influence that,” he said.