Dr. Cynthia Jackson Hammond, WSSU dean of the School of Education and Human Performance, was co-chair of the Institute and gave remarks at its closing ceremony.
The Thurgood Marshall College Fund launched its southeast regional Teacher Quality and Retention Summer Institute in late June with an inaugural class of 40 fellows from colleges across the country. The pre-service and aspiring teachers completed an intensive training curriculum at Winston-Salem State University before pursuing teaching positions in the fall in underserved school districts around the country. States represented in the institute included Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and West Virginia.
The training program is the only national outreach effort designed to recruit, train and mentor 10,000 new minority teachers over the next five years from the 47 public Historically Black Colleges & Universities. Of that number, 30 percent will be science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors; and 40 percent will be African-American males.
The week-long training institute at WSSU was the second of four that TMCF is hosting through the end of July. The remaining institutes, which will also be led by national board-certified teachers and STEM teachers from the nationally recognized UTeach program, are in Washington, DC, and Santa Clara, CA. The first institute was held in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
The intensive institute provides a platform for improvements in the public education system by training, rewarding and retaining well-qualified minority teachers.
“Our ultimate goal is to ensure that of the 30,000 new teachers called for by the Obama administration for high-need schools, a large percentage will come from the diverse training grounds of HBCUs,” said Dwayne Ashley, president and CEO of Thurgood Marshall College Fund. “These institutions are uniquely positioned to drive improvements in our public education system.”
After the inaugural 200 fellows return to their communities, they will receive scholarships, continuing professional development through online training courses, and mentoring by seasoned educators. They are also required to participate in follow-up training sessions twice a year. Their progress in the classroom will be tracked by a national advisory board for the next five years as they continue their commitment to teach in public secondary schools.
