2015 Cohort – Page 2 – Institute for Recruitment of Teachers

Associate Director & Manager of Programs Update, June 2023

Dear IRT Community,

During our transition from Spring into Summer, it is a time of joy and new beginnings. IRT warmly congratulates our outgoing IRT scholars who will be entering graduate school this Fall and who have now been inducted into the IRT alumni network, approximately 3000 strong. At the same time, we also welcome our incoming 2023 IRT Scholar cohort who started on June 1st for a comprehensive 10 month program to include advising, webinars, an intensive summer workshop taught by IRT alum faculty and opportunities to engage directly with the IRT Consortium of Colleges and Universities. IRT has truly grown to be responsive to the changing educational landscape. Providing aspiring BIPOC graduate students with ongoing mentorship and support to successfully navigate graduate school and beyond is critical for diversifying and retaining educators across PK-12 through higher education.

Alumni Accolades, March 2023

Dr. Aria Halliday, IRT ‘11 spoke at the University of California, Berkeley on a panel called “On Erotic Mastery: Pornography, Hip Hop Feminisms, and Transness” on March 1, 2023. The panel was hosted by Dr. Peace and Love El Henson, as part of the Black Studies Collaboratory Open University spring symposium.

Current UC Berkeley Ph.D. student Paul Salamanca, IRT ’18 attended the event and is pictured with Aria above.

Alumni Accolades, January 2023

Brittney Yancy, IRT ’03
Brittney holds a masters degree in U.S. History and earned a Ph.D. in U.S. History last year from the University of Connecticut. Brittney is currently an Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at Illinois College.

Alumni Accolades, September 2022

Julia Jordan-Zachery, IRT ‘91
Jordan-Zachery has assumed the role of Professor and Chair of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Wake Forest University. The following books from Jordan-Zachery are available or will be available soon – Eat the Meat and Spit out the Bones (poetry from Main Street Rag); Erotic Testimonies: Black Women Daring to be Wild and Free (SUNY Press); Lavender Fields: Black Women Experiencing fear, agency and hope in the time of COVID-19 (Univ. of Arizona Press).

An Interview with Dr. Jessica Samuel, IRT ’15 on Educational Equity

Dr. Samuel is an education equity expert. Her experience includes advising for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education, consulting for the Commonwealth Corporation, and coaching for the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers. In addition to working with education organizations, she also provides 1:1 coaching and small group workshops for various education stakeholders.

Dr. Samuel recently spoke with Brittany Zorn, IRT ’13 on her work and experiences. The written transcription of their conversation, link to an audio copy and an introduction by Brittany is included below.

Introduction by Brittany Zorn, IRT ‘13

As an IRT alumna, I started my role as Arts & Sciences Programs Specialist for the IRT with a ton of enthusiasm and boundless energy. Early on in my career, I was tasked with incorporating more opportunities for current students to connect directly with alumni. One of the ways I sought to bring more alumni perspectives to our advising curriculum was through the curation of multiple alumni panels and alumni-lead talks during the Summer Workshop (this was, of course, pre-pandemic when in-person programming was still the universal standard.) As luck would have it, I was casually scrolling Facebook one day and came across a post by IRT alumna Jessica S. Samuel, IRT ’15 regarding some of the work she was doing at Boston University around self-care for BIPOC students at PWIs as a revolutionary and libratory act. I instantly identified Jessica’s work as addressing a gap in IRT’s advising curriculum that I was working to close; we wanted to facilitate more intentional conversations around wellness for our scholars, and Jessica clearly demonstrated some specialization in this area through her post. I reached out and invited her to lead IRT’s first ever Wellness Day keynote address in the 2017 IRT Summer Workshop, and this collaboration served as the starting point of our working relationship ever since.