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Earlham Grads at Head of the Class with Teach for America For Immediate Release: 
RICHMOND, Ind. — Maryanne Kiley can hardly contain her excitement. As national recruitment director for the educational service program Teach for America (TFA), she’s looking forward to the late winter blizzard of applications soon to descend on TFA headquarters from thousands of about-to-graduate college seniors across the country. Though heightening her anticipation, especially, is the knowledge that some of those applications likely will be coming from students at Earlham College. “I don’t know if they’re putting something special in the water out there or what,” says Kiley from her New York City office, “but it seems that we always get some of our best young teachers from Earlham. And what’s so incredible, too, is that for such a small school we get so many students joining. It really is a strong statement, I think, about Earlham and the kind of education that obviously takes place there.” Since 1992, Kiley reports, a total of 24 Earlham graduates have departed campus committed under the TFA program to two years of teaching in schools located in low-income rural and urban communities around the nation. Twice, in 2000 and again in 2002, seven members of the graduating class at Earlham have walked across the commencement stage to collect their diplomas and then kept right on walking into one of three summer institutes TFA conducts each year to help prepare corps members, as they’re called, for the rigors of teaching in what often are extremely challenging circumstances. “That’s pretty intense,” says Kiley of the College’s 2000 and 2002 turnouts for TFA, “especially coming from a school with a senior class of, what, just 300 or 400 students. The University of Michigan is our biggest school for contributing members, but, of course, it is so enormous in terms of its enrollment. For its size, Earlham’s level of participation is really impressive.” “Exceptionally well prepared” Beyond mere numbers, though, Kiley says TFA appreciates receiving applications from Earlham students because previous enrollees in the program — currently a member of the national service network AmeriCorps — have proven to be “exceptionally well prepared” for being partners in TFA’s movement to eliminate educational inequity in this country.
The following Earlham graduates are past or present participants in the
two-year Teach for America program: Since Betsy Shaw Hirshfeld became the College’s first TFA corps member in 1992, “Earlham participants have put together just an amazing record of success with Teach for America,” says Kiley, who attributes that record to several factors: First is the College’s long and rich history of promoting service learning. Roughly 70 percent of Earlham students take part in some form of volunteer and/or community service in any given academic year (in 2003-04 contributing more than 50,000 hours of service to the Richmond and Wayne County, Ind., communities). Many corps members from the College, Kiley believes, see their work with TFA as an extension of their Earlham service experience. Another significant factor contributing to EC corps members’ history of achievement with TFA, adds Kiley, appears to be the value the College places on quality teaching. She is convinced that the respect Earlham students have for so many outstanding teachers on campus has inspired more than a few, as graduates and TFA corps members, to try to emulate that level of quality teaching in their own classrooms. And lastly, but perhaps most important, Kiley feels it is Earlham’s Quaker-inspired concern for social inequity and injustice that helps to set its alumni apart in terms of their efforts on behalf of TFA. “There’s just such a strong sense of wanting to fight social inequity, in general,” says Kiley, “and I think that speaks so well of Earlham, overall — that students receive so much of that while they’re on campus and that they take so much of that with them when they go.” Joy and struggle Although relatively few TFA corps members sign up predisposed to becoming full-time professional teachers (in fact, the program is not marketed especially to education majors), still many participants praise their TFA involvement as being excellent experience, in general, for life and many other potential future careers. Count among those believers 2003 Earlham graduate Andy Graham. A geosciences major from Ohio, Graham is completing his second year with TFA as a special education teacher in St. Louis, an indoctrination to life after college he characterizes as very difficult at times, but also extremely rewarding. “It’s been kind of a joy and a struggle at the same time,” says Graham, who plans next to continue his science studies in graduate school. “It’s been a very different experience, anyway, than I thought I would have. The cohort of new teachers I came in with … well, at the time there was a lot of chaos and turmoil in the district. There was a lot of uncertainty. I didn’t know until three days before I started, for example, that I was going to be teaching special ed, which has definitely been a challenge. But, in some ways, that has made the experience better than I expected, as well. And, isn’t that the way life is? “I would recommend it (TFA) most highly,” concludes Graham. “There aren’t many things out there that are as professionally and emotionally demanding as teaching. So to that extent, I think the rigors of working in education can help prepare you for a lot of different things you might want to do in the future.” — EC — Contact:
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Earlham
College · 801 National Road West · Richmond,
Indiana 47374-4095 |