Program – Page 7 – Institute for Recruitment of Teachers

Recruiting IRT’s Next Cohort

IRT Application Deadline – March 1, 2023
The IRT is accepting applications for scholars planning to attend graduate school in the fall of 2024.

To help prospective applicants learn more about our application process, the IRT has created a short webinar series, which details our admissions process. We strongly encourage all interested applicants to attend or listen to all four of these webinars. IRT staff will provide insight on how we evaluate candidates and what constitutes a strong applicant.

Are you an IRT Alum interested in how you can help with recruitment?
We recently sent out an alumni email, but if you didn’t receive one then please email us for information on how you can host your own information session at your university or other ways to share the word about the IRT !

IRT helped me in invaluable ways throughout the grad school application process; I would like to pay it forward to the next generation of scholars now that I am faculty at a university.

IRT Alumni Panels – Engaging with Current Scholars

The continuation of the IRT Post Advising Season began on a high note in January when Leislie Godo-Solo ‘91, Education Programs Specialist, and Brittany Zorn ‘13 Arts and Sciences Programs Specialist, moderated the last of nine alumni panels held through-out the year this January. The panels are one part of the comprehensive advising program for current Scholars. They provide access and invaluable insight from alumni who share their journeys pursuing their Master’s and Ph.D. degrees.

Welcome 2022 IRT Cohort!

IRT is proud to welcome 104 Scholars into the 2022 Cohort! We are excited by the enthusiasm and diligence these Scholars have already displayed in just the first few weeks of engagement with the program. As is often the case amongst IRT students, this year’s cohort displays a zeal for producing scholarship, developing curriculums, and facilitating interventions which will greatly increase access to education and equity within all aspects of life for historically marginalized populations. Compared to recent years, this cohort has a bigger majority of scholars pursuing fields in education and pursuing Decorate degrees. Psychology, counseling, and therapy are increasingly popular fields amongst IRT scholars as well. We cannot help but wonder how much the pandemic, and our systematic and institutional responses to the global health crisis, have informed these growing fields and degree paths of interest amongst our scholars. One thing is clear; the passion, drive, and brilliance of the 2022 Cohort is a continuation of IRT alumni’s historic excellence, and we are excited to help this next generation of researchers, educators, and leaders apply to graduate programs on their pathways to transformative careers!

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 .

Perseverance Pays Off

L. Virginia Martinez, IRT ’21

I will preface by saying that this is my experience and my journey, and everyone will have their own set of challenges and good and bad moments. While this journey was very long and often resulted in many tears, it was one of my most rewarding journeys. I joined IRT during my first gap year while an AmeriCorps Fellow. If I didn’t join in 2021, my gap year might extend more than two years.

My Journey

After my service year ended in July, I applied for my first “big girl job’, and I got it. While I thought this would be the most exciting time of my career, I was sadly mistaken. There is a long list of things that were red flags, even from my first day there. I had a weird feeling in my stomach on my first day, but I figured it was jitters, the rainy weather, or a mix of anxiety and excitement to have my first real job. Months later, I realized my instincts were trying to warn me. Shortly after I started, I was miserable, overworked, underrepresented, and depressed. I didn’t have much support at the job, except for three co-workers who I still communicate with. (Spoiler: I left after three months). I couldn’t take any PTO until my third month working there —I had to bill a certain number of units per week, I drove over 2k miles in my short time there, and I was frequently vocal about the lack of diversity in the organization and how my position as one of the few women of color there affected me.