The University of Rhode Island’s Feinstein College of Education received a $300,000 grant to diversify its teacher candidates’ pool. The grant, called the Urban Residency Initiative Pathways to Education, was awarded by the non-profit Rhode Island Foundation.
The college plans to use the funding to provide introductory teaching courses to high school students from the Providence-based Highlander Charter School and develop ties with the University’s Talent Development Program, an admissions initiative aimed at providing pathways to college for disadvantaged Rhode Island-area students with strong academic potential.
The program is aimed at exposing students to the profession of teaching by providing college-accredited classes for high school students.
“It’s a gateway for them to not only earn college credit, but also have opportunities to meet with current students in the education program to get a sense of community before they even come to URI,” Tashal Brown, an assistant professor of urban education and secondary social studies at the College of Education and co-author of the grant said. “We want to make sure that students feel that they have a strong sense of community and belonging along this pathway into the teaching profession.”
The grant will pay for additional teaching staff at Highlander to teach the classes, stipends and gas reimbursements for URI student leaders involved with the initiative and outside experts in the field to ensure the sustainability and efficacy of the program, according to Diane Kern, a professor of education who spearheaded the grant initiative.
“We’re planning a steering committee to help build this into a sustainable model for the University to connect with community influencers and partners — people already doing this work,” Kern said.
Should the initiative be successful, it may have long-term positive effects on Rhode Island’s student body. Black students who have one black teacher by the third grade are 13% more likely to attend college; a number that increases to 32% when a black student has two black teachers, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
“Many students are attending schools where even if they’re a majority in the student population, many of the teachers don’t look like them,” Brown said. “Becoming a teacher may not seem like a norm or even a possibility for them. That’s why starting at the high school level is important to us – to give them a sense of what the profession is and have them create opportunities to be able to engage with educators of color so they can hear their perspectives and what brought them into teaching.”
The grant comes at a monumental time for the College of Education: on Sept. 12, the University announced the College’s name change from the School of Education to the Feinstein College of Education and a plethora of new degree programs, including Bachelor of Science degrees in environmental education and early childhood education, a Bachelor of Arts in world language education and a Ph.D. in education.
Faculty at the College of Education hope that the grant’s initiatives will be a starting point for much larger initiatives to attract a more diverse body of teacher candidates.
“We’d like to be able to somehow find a way that, at least in our undergraduate program, by senior year, students will not have the barriers of transportation cost, clothing and tuition and that they will be paid by the school districts that they work in,” Kern said.