4 CUA Seniors Set to Join Teach for America After Graduation
Seniors Ryan Winn, Andrea Baick, and Rachael Staab.
Four Catholic University seniors will join the 2011 Teach for America program following graduation, and teach for two years at an urban or rural public school in the United States.
The students are:
Ryan Winn, politics major, North Attleborough, Mass.
Veronica Diaz, Spanish for International Services major, Newington, Conn.
Andrea Baick, marketing major, Gaithersburg, Md.
Rachael Staab, politics major, Norton, Mass.
Last year, only 4,500 of the 46,000 applicants to Teach for America were accepted to work in the program's 39 regions, according to the website of the New York City-based nonprofit organization.
The four students noted that CUA's curriculum and extracurricular activities paved the way for their future with Teach for America.
Staab, who will teach at an elementary school in Wilmington, Del., said, "I have had a lot of leadership roles here at CUA and have learned so much about advocating for yourself and presenting your own thoughts and ideas in a productive and transformational way. That is an important philosophy that I will bring to the classroom."
Senior Veronica Diaz
The CUA students, who according to the organization's website are " outstanding recent college graduates and professionals from all backgrounds" and seek to eliminate educational inequity in the United States, said they applied to help fulfill Teach for America's mission.
Diaz, who will teach bilingual education at an elementary school in Houston, Texas, said, "The more I learned about these problems affecting low-income communities, I saw all of the educational opportunities I had and that 14 million kids did not have the same ones. It was really shocking. I wanted to pay it forward, and think that education is so important."
This spring, the students will begin to prepare for their placements, visiting their assigned schools and looking for place to lives. Winn said he is scheduled to visit the middle school in Memphis, Tenn., where he is expected to teach biology this fall, in the last week of May for an orientation program.
In the summer, the students will enter an intensive, five-week training seminar in a regional Teach for America center. They will learn classroom management skills and teaching techniques.
Being selected for the program required multiple steps. Baick completed an online application, which consisted of a resume and letter of intent. Next, she interviewed over the phone for a half hour with a Teach for America representative. Finally, she had an in-person interview that lasted five hours.
Baick, who will teach high school math in Baltimore, said she is thrilled to begin teaching this fall. "The students targeted through Teach for America are in need of a role model and leader that will set them on the right path to success," she noted. "I believe that my experiences at CUA will allow me to provide such necessities for these students."
On its website, Teach for America says that since its first year in 1990, the organization has had an impact on more than 3 million students.
