SUMMER 2008

Mellon supports Andover's teacher recruitment institute

An innovative program to recruit and prepare talented undergraduates from diverse backgrounds for teaching careers, the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers (IRT), has been granted an unprecedented $2 million by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Founded by Kelly Wise in 1990 at Phillips Academy in Andover (Massachusetts) the IRT has identified and guided more than 1,100 young adults toward master's and doctoral degrees, and ultimately to careers in K–12 and college teaching.

"This grant from Mellon is very significant, especially because it underwrites endowment and helps ensure the longevity of the program," said Executive Director Wise. "It also underscores the national need for teachers' recruitment and retention," Wise added. "The IRT recruits students with bright minds and glowing hearts who want to recharge classrooms with inspired teaching and dynamic curricula. It is the quality of these students that distinguishes the IRT."

The substantial grant reflects the foundation's confidence in this highly successful effort to bring the percentage of people of color teaching in the nation's classrooms more in line with their growing representation in the population. As Lydia English, program officer at the Mellon Foundation, said, "The IRT's effort in helping prepare students for graduate programs, teaching, and research has been one of the foremost concerted efforts underway. This is critically important because, for the last 40 years, various entities have been trying to bring a significant amount of diversity into higher education through the student body, the faculty, and the administration. After many years of exclusion, a committed, dedicated effort over almost 20 years has begun to bear fruit, although progress has not caught up with the need." People of color comprise nearly 40 percent of the nation's population, but only 16 percent of teachers.

Educators around the country now recognize the recruitment and retention of teachers of color is a pressing issue in schools and universities that will persist throughout the century. In creating the Institute, Wise's original intention, which is today still its guiding force, was two-pronged: "First, to enhance educational diversity by deepening the pool of talented students of color who enter the teaching profession. And second, to create a cadre of highly trained new educators to take on challenging social and curricular issues in their classrooms."

To date, more than 100 students have earned doctorates, and more than 700 have received or are working toward master's degrees. In what is perhaps the most telling statistical reflection of the program's success, a survey of the IRT class of 2002 five years later found that 93 percent were still employed in education fields.