Higher Education – Page 2 – Institute for Recruitment of Teachers

The IRT Furthering Connections and Conversation

In partnership with educational thought leaders across the country, the IRT engages in conversations on the current landscape, implementing change, and sharing knowledge.

October 2023

In October Catherine Wong, IRT Associate Director and Manager of Programs, co-presented with Gerry Ebalaroza-Tunnell, PhD at the 13th International Conference on Education and Justice led by Kevin Kumashiro, PhD, currently the Interim Dean of the School of Education at Hofstra University, and hosted by the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, College of Education, University Laboratory School (HI) and Hawai‘i Scholars for Education and Social Justice (HSESJ). The theme of the conference was “Collective Scholarship for Public Pedagogy and Against Empire,” and the title of their workshop was “Whose Talk Story? Our Talk Story; Battling the Empire Through Pōkā Laenui’s Process of Decolonization.”

(L-R) Jennifer Dazo Bishop, Ke Kula Kaiapuni ‘O Pū‘ōhala, Gerry Ebalaroza-Tunnell, Co3 Consulting, Jose Paolo Magcalas, California State University at Los Angeles

The 2023 UNCF/Mellon Programs Conference

IRT Education Programs Specialist Leislie Godo-Solo, IRT ’91 collaborated with colleagues and presented in this one-day workshop. This year’s annual conference, which was held in Atlanta, focused on the imperative to transform the academy.

IRT Cohort Finalizes Graduate School Plans

IRT Scholars have worked closely with their advisors reviewing admissions offers and fielding invitations for interview and campus visits in order to make the most informed matriculation decisions they can. Decisions have been made! We congratulate all of our current scholars for their work and energy throughout these past months. Congratulations and best wishes in your next step on your professional journey!

Being a part of the IRT program has been transformative not only for how prepared I am to pursue doctoral studies, but also fundamentally how I see myself.
Sophie D’Souza, IRT ’22

NCORE New Orleans May 30 – June 3

35th Annual National Conference on Race & Ethnicity (NCORE) on Higher Education

IRT Associate Director and Manager of Programs Catherine Wong, IRT Arts and Sciences Specialist Brittany Zorn, IRT ’13, and IRT Education Specialist Leislie Godo-Solo, IRT ’91 presented at NCORE in New Orleans earlier this month.

What is NCORE?
According to it’s website – “the conference series constitutes the leading and most comprehensive national forum on issues of race and ethnicity in higher education. The conference focuses on the complex task of creating and sustaining comprehensive institutional change. This change work is designed to improve racial and ethnic relations and their intersections with other issues and groups on campus. The conference speakers and sessions offer strategies for expanding educational access and success for diverse, traditionally underrepresented populations.”

IRT Welcomes Catherine Wong as Associate Director and Manager of Programs

Catherine Wong (she/her/hers) has been appointed Associate Director and Manager of Programs (ADMP) Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers, an outreach program housed at Phillips Andover Academy, focused on diversifying graduate education and K-12 through higher education professions to include teachers, professors and academic leaders.

Ms. Wong is a lifelong educator focusing on teacher training, educational leadership and youth outreach while centering diversity, equity and inclusion. She is unwavering and uncompromising in her support of educators of color and first generation to college. She has long believed that it should be the norm, not the exception, that our students have well trained teachers, specialists, and school leaders, who are reflections of their lived experiences and communities. For Ms. Wong teaching and learning is not a top-down hierarchical process, but one of co-construction and connectedness. Her accomplishments were honored this past year as the City of Boston’s 2021 EXTRAordinary Woman .

2021 IRT Cohort Future Plans

We are so very proud of the work and perseverance the 2021 IRT Cohort has shown over the past year. In the second year of the pandemic, IRT students have encountered many difficult decisions. IRT alumni especially have been so helpful with students navigating these important decisions with keen advice and insight on programs and schools. It takes a village and we are thankful to all alumni who have helped this year’s cohort and continually enhance the connections within the IRT!

Thank you a million times over for your assistance throughout my school application process. I am so grateful to have the incredible support network that I do, and it’s the reason why I pour into others— students, mentees, colleagues, my community. You’ve made all the difference for me during this incredibly difficult year. Thank you.
Abby Katz, IRT ’21