Spring Break
Graduates Seek Alternative Path
Melinda Fusco
Issue date: 5/6/07 Section: News
College students have many opportunities upon graduation. Many go on to pursue their Master's degree in graduate school, others begin their careers in the job market, and others choose an alternate route, such as working to eliminate one of the nation's most pressing problem - educational inequality - with Teach for America (TFA).
In America today, educational imbalance persists along socioeconomic and racial lines, according to the TFA Web site. Nine-year-olds growing up in low-income communities are already three grade levels behind their peers in high-income communities. Half of them won't graduate from high school.
TFA's mission is to enlist the "nation's most promising future leaders in the movement to eliminate educational inequality," according to Audrey Giesler, a recruitment director for TFA who also was a corps member for two years in Chicago. She taught 7th-grade reading, math and science.
TFA accomplishes this by building a diverse, highly-selective national corps of recent college graduates - of all academic majors and career interests - who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools in the nation's lowest-income communities and become lifelong leaders for expanding educational opportunity, according to its Web site.
This year 78 UConn students applied to TFA, however due to its selective nature, only 12 students have been offered jobs with TFA and have accepted.
One of these students is Micah Uhrlass, a graduating finance major. Uhrlass will begin his two-year commitment with TFA in Houston this summer, teaching high school mathematics. He said teaching isn't just a job, it is a life-long commitment.
"I intend to make that commitment and be a continual role model who will challenge these children," Uhrlass said.
Demonstrating the ability to overcome obstacles and possessing exceptional leadership capabilities is what Uhlrass said he thinks got him into this program.
"TFA expects you to have a passion and an understanding that these children need to be held to the same standards as those being educated in high-income areas," he said. "The applicant who is book-smart, yet ignorant to the educational inequity that is happening in our country right now will not be chosen by TFA."
In America today, educational imbalance persists along socioeconomic and racial lines, according to the TFA Web site. Nine-year-olds growing up in low-income communities are already three grade levels behind their peers in high-income communities. Half of them won't graduate from high school.
TFA's mission is to enlist the "nation's most promising future leaders in the movement to eliminate educational inequality," according to Audrey Giesler, a recruitment director for TFA who also was a corps member for two years in Chicago. She taught 7th-grade reading, math and science.
TFA accomplishes this by building a diverse, highly-selective national corps of recent college graduates - of all academic majors and career interests - who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools in the nation's lowest-income communities and become lifelong leaders for expanding educational opportunity, according to its Web site.
This year 78 UConn students applied to TFA, however due to its selective nature, only 12 students have been offered jobs with TFA and have accepted.
One of these students is Micah Uhrlass, a graduating finance major. Uhrlass will begin his two-year commitment with TFA in Houston this summer, teaching high school mathematics. He said teaching isn't just a job, it is a life-long commitment.
"I intend to make that commitment and be a continual role model who will challenge these children," Uhrlass said.
Demonstrating the ability to overcome obstacles and possessing exceptional leadership capabilities is what Uhlrass said he thinks got him into this program.
"TFA expects you to have a passion and an understanding that these children need to be held to the same standards as those being educated in high-income areas," he said. "The applicant who is book-smart, yet ignorant to the educational inequity that is happening in our country right now will not be chosen by TFA."
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