(Image courtesy of Teach For America)
CU’s growing graduate program, Teach for America, allows seniors of all majors to apply for teaching jobs in low-income regions nationwide.
TFA had 82,000 corps members last year. Applicants must have a bachelor’s degree and be willing to work full-time as teachers for two years, said Kaitlin Gastrock, regional communications director for Teach for America.
“Teach for America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools,” Gastrock said.
Founded by Princeton graduate Wendy Cox, TFA operates in 39 regions around the country and CU is ranked as the sixteenth largest producer of corps members for a school its size, Gastrock said.
She said 31 members of CU’s graduating class joined last year.
“Last year we were excited to have Boulder be amongst the schools contributing the largest amount of corps members to our 2010 teaching core,” she said.
Gastrock said the program does not require applicants to be education majors.
Bidita Teesa Dutta, a 22-year-old graduate of CU’s 2010 class who majored in psychology and journalism, applied to the program last year, following in her brother’s footsteps and his Teach for America experience.
“What interested me the most was getting to help underprivileged children,” Dutta said.
She said she first attended an informational meeting on TFA held at CU.
“Right after that session, I went online and filled out an application,” she said. “I was contacted for a phone interview, and then again for a day-long interview at CU.”
Dutta said TFA was the only program available on campus that interested her.
“I decided to choose TFA because my brother was going through it and I had heard of TFA’s prestige,” she said.
Although she said she has acquired some benefits from the program after being positioned to teach in rural New Mexico, Dutta said there is more to the program than getting to teach underprivileged students.
She said she feels TFA’s experience has forced her to grow up a lot and that teaching is harder than she imagined.
“I have learned how to live on my own in an area that I am not comfortable in,” Dutta said. “As a teacher, I am still learning how to manage a classroom and plan lessons accordingly for my students.”
CU’s TFA Campus Coordinator, Megan Morton, said she heard about Teach for America as a senior in college.
“I was really hesitant at first if I would apply,” Morton said. “But, once I learned more about the problem we are trying to solve, I knew I had to be involved.”
TFA functions similarly to a CU student group on campus.
“This means that the school administration acknowledges our cause as one that they support,” Morton said. “We are able to hold events on campus more easily than we would otherwise.”
Morton said CU is the first school to have officially partnered with TFA and that other schools in the country are looking to CU’s partnership as an example of what is possible at the higher education level.
She said participants in the program receive a full-time salary of $31,000-$51,000 a year, an AmeriCorps stipend of over $10,000, as well as transitional loans and grants to cover moving costs.
She said many graduate schools are willing to defer a student’s admission for two years for the program, as well as waive application fees and provide scholarship opportunities. Some companies will also defer an employment offer for up to two years.
Gastrock said TFA is looking to increase the number of future leaders who are passionate about making their vision into a reality.
“Our vision is that one day all students in the country will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education,” Gastrock said. “We’re really looking for folks who are going to be really dedicated to closing achievement gaps because that is a massive, but solvable, problem.”
The next application deadline is Feb. 4. To learn more about the program and about the application process visit the TFA website.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Carli Auran at Carli.auran@colorado.edu.
