Education – Institute for Recruitment of Teachers

Impactful Leadership of Schools of Education in Difficult Times

Catherine Wong, Associate Director & Manager of Programs attended a virtual workshop with Kevin Kumashiro, Ph.D. on transformative frameworks for educational leadership

What if the very act of supporting a scholar through their graduate school application is fundamentally transforming educational institutions? That’s the powerful realization that emerged from Catherine Wong’s three-day virtual intensive with Kevin Kumashiro, Ph.D. this January. Over the course of the workshop, “Impactful Leadership of Schools of Education in Difficult Times,” Kumashiro didn’t just share leadership strategies, he challenged participants to fundamentally rethink what it means to lead for justice. His central provocation? That we must name and engage with contradictions rather than resolve them, that resistance is inevitable and must be worked through rather than avoided, and that transformative change happens through collective movements, not siloed actions. For those of us committed to supporting aspiring scholars at IRT, these insights landed with particular resonance. After all, when we sit with a scholar crafting their personal statement, aren’t we doing exactly what Kumashiro describes: historicizing their journey to reveal enduring paradoxes, reframing their experiences to illuminate what others might miss and creating space to work through the discomfort of unlearning limiting narratives about who belongs in graduate education?

The IRT Effect: Charting Ph.D. Completion

Leislie Godo-Solo, IRT ’91
Education Programs Specialist, Institute for Recruitment of Teachers

Recently, I was chosen to participate in the 4^th annual cohort of the Phillips Academy Head of School Leadership Development Program (HOS-LDP) alongside 11 other individuals from the following schools: Pomfret School, St Paul’s School, Deerfield Academy, Lick- Wilmerding High School, and Phillips Academy. The 8-month program consisted of an in person, two-day leadership retreat, twice-monthly cohort meetings with guest lecturers and readings, 10 hours of professional coaching, the opportunity to enroll in a leadership course taught by Harvard’s online Business School, a capstone project and presentation that addressed a departmental or institutional priority, and a closing dinner including a certificate award ceremony.

IRT Alumni Access to Career Pages

The online IRT Alumni Network is an exclusive space for alumni engaging with each other in many ways. Did you know there is a job board, which includes postings from schools and institutions within the network that you can use to reach our online community or apply for a position yourself?

NCORE: May 28 – June 1, 2024

IRT Associate Director and Manager of Programs Catherine Wong attended the 36th Annual National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE®) held on the island of O’ahu, Hawai’i. The IRT has attended NCORE® over the last few years, engaging in the five-day conference focusing on community engagement, exchanging knowledge and ideas as it relates to race and ethnicity on campus, and meeting up with IRT alumni and colleagues.

Do you have a conference whereby you feel that you can show up as your full scholar activist self without being second guessed, silenced or stereotyped? Do you have an annual conference or national forum that allows you to embrace your growing edges with other fellow changemakers?

NCORE® has been that conference for me since my entry into higher education more than 2 decades ago. I feel fortunate to have found a conference where critical dialogues are the norm, not the exception, where friendships grow from collegial relationships, and where creativity is a collective effort. Therefore having NCORE® select my home state of Hawai’i for its conference site for the first time in its 36 year history and during API month was wonderfully affirming and exciting.

Professional Development and a Learning Opportunity for Teachers

From time to time, I find myself reflecting on my career in the field of Education which spans some 30 years and includes teaching high school Spanish in inner city Nashville, a stint as the Coordinator of Minority Teacher Recruitment Center at Western Kentucky University, where I recruited BIPOC students into the College of Education, administrated and awarded the state’s teacher education scholarship, provided support services such as advising and Praxis I test preparation, and designed a residential week-long program for middle schoolers and a two week residential program for freshman education majors.

During my tenure at IRT over the last two decades, recruiting at universities across the country, and serving as a SOP and IRT Advisor, writing curriculum, and co-developing our robust advising program, among other duties, I have staunchly advocated for my own and colleagues’ professional development and personal growth. I welcome the challenge that learning something new can bring, the opportunity to interact with others, and the time to think about old problems in news ways. Moreover, as a perpetual teacher and learner, I find myself regularly contemplating the ways that I can become a more effective advisor by deepening my knowledge of the students IRT serves and, while simultaneously, developing my understanding of content knowledge across various fields, technology, the digital humanities, and place as it pertains to the geographic home countries of IRT Scholars’ families and the diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds that they and our scholars possess. For me, all that I learn informs the way that I show up to mentor and counsel students.