As one of a group of Northwestern seniors accepted to Teach For America this year, Weinberg senior Hannah Chapel will be able to realize her passion for public service. For the program, Chapel will spend the next two years teaching at a public school in Chicago.
“From my major, I’m not feeding into a specific career path. (TFA) caters to people like me who don’t know exactly what they want to do,” said Chapel, who is majoring in psychology and international studies with a minor in global health.
TFA is a program that seeks to close the achievement gap between wealthy and underprivileged public school districts in the United States. The organization hires and trains college graduates from all fields of study to teach grades K-12 in schools in low-income communities for two years.
This year, TFA received a record number of applications, a 42 percent increase from last year, according to the organization’s Web site. Twenty-two NU students were accepted into TFA in 2008-09. The numbers have yet to be released for this year’s class.
Other public service organizations have experienced similar increases in applications – in the past four months, AmeriCorps, an organization that pairs individuals with service-based programs, has seen a 400 percent increase in applications.
SESP and Weinberg senior Jackson Froliklong is another NU student who will join the TFA corps to teach in Chicago next year. Froliklong said the state of the economy has likely played a role in students’ decisions not to enter the workforce immediately after college. More importantly, TFA’s increased popularity may reflect a more deeply-rooted attitude among today’s college graduates, he said.
“I feel that there is an increased feeling of connectedness with society,” Froliklong said. “There is less pressure to immediately start a career and a change in tone about the way people talk about their post-graduation plans.”
Froliklong and Weinberg junior Anna Gutina are two of four NU students who work as campus campaign organizers for TFA. They publicize the organization on campus and encourage student leaders to apply for the program.
Gutina said the campaign organizers’ goal is to make sure TFA is able to choose from the “cream of the crop” at NU.
TFA teachers only spend two years in the classroom, but their affiliation often extends beyond that period because many of them go on to become advocates for TFA’s cause, Gutina said.
President Barack Obama’s “national call to service” and his popularity among young adults may have also had an impact on the number of students applying, the campus campaign organizers said.
“President Obama is a huge advocate for TFA and the idea that teachers should be compensated for their performance in the classroom,” Gutina said.
Chapel said she did not decide to apply for TFA until December, but her volunteer experiences at NU have made her excited to work for the organization. Over the next few months, she will be interviewing with school principals in the Chicago area to determine exactly where she will teach next year.
“I think the economic downturn has made people realize that the world is not a perfect place, and has made them think about how they want to spend their time,” she said. “When you are first out of college, you need to make enough to live, but you don’t have to worry about supporting a family. There is no better time in life to do something like this.”
