Executive Letter – Page 2 – Institute for Recruitment of Teachers

Executive Director Letter, June 2024

IRT Scholars and alums are gearing up for our 33rd Summer Workshop. As Freire reminds us, education is a tool for liberation and love. I am excited that we have continued to expand on the Summer Workshop – now allowing IRT Faculty to instruct, design, and facilitate their courses. Our online platform enables scholars to engage live and through recordings – and we can support all IRT Scholars with curriculum and robust advising.

In our current times, we must be instructing scholars in frameworks and methodologies we are seeing in the field and our courses of study. Our IRT alums have unique perspectives, research, and pedagogical approaches. We are grateful to have such a robust community of scholars, practitioners and more to help build a place of intellectual inquiry and holistic student development.

Executive Director Letter, March 2024

Dear IRT Community,

At this time last year, I could not distinguish the changing seasons. Spring as a season came and went, only distinguished by various moments of grief. To navigate this, I took a step back to be with my family and to support a loved one in their heavenly transition. Throughout that time, I was and continue to be grateful to the IRT team for continuing the program and supporting our scholars.

IRT Letter, January 2024

Greetings from IRT!

We hope the holidays offered you time to rest, reflect and rejuvenate. Venturing into the new year, we are excited to continue to explore IRT’s future. Given the continuing urgency and crisis of our times, we know we need more diverse teachers, specialists, administrators, and professors now. We know that change does not happen in isolation or departmental vacuums. With the mounting challenges to what we teach, how we teach, where we teach, and who we teach with, the IRT represents a throughline of community, connection, and care.

Executive Letter, September 2023

Hello IRT Community!

Happy start of the school year! As we all return to classrooms, offices, routines, and the sounds of learning – I hope our community is well and safe. Over the last few months, the IRT staff worked diligently to ensure our program operations and conversations regarding our future stayed on course. I hope you join me in expressing gratitude for their skill application, resources, and tenacity to augment the opportunities for our Scholars.

We navigated the IRT admissions cycle, welcoming 108 Scholars into our cohort. In the last year alone, teachers faced unprecedented attacks on values the IRT community holds near and dear. We are proud of our Scholars for envisioning a future of education with them in it – even though our broader communities are navigating extensive uncertainty.

Executive Letter, January 2023

Brooks photo

Moving into 2023, I am enthusiastic about the year IRT has ahead. Our IRT Scholars submitted their applications for graduate school, and we could not be more proud of them. We are grateful for the support of the IRT staff, external advisors, and IRT alums who aided and supported the process.

As our Scholars continue to navigate the admissions process with interviews and preview days, the IRT begins to open ours. Our alums continue to recognize prospective educators and to ensure we have the representation of future scholarship we need. Applications are open until March 1, so please share the application amongst your networks. If you would like to review the IRT application process or to share application resources, please visit our application page.