{"id":202559,"date":"2016-03-08T11:17:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T16:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=202559"},"modified":"2023-08-09T11:26:04","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T15:26:04","slug":"future-teachers-unite-with-education-professionals-in-new-neag-school-mentoring-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/03\/future-teachers-unite-with-education-professionals-in-new-neag-school-mentoring-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Teachers Unite With Education Professionals in New Neag School Mentoring Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

For students of color interested in pursuing a career as a schoolteacher, the Neag School, in partnership with student-led organization\u00a0Leadership in Diversity (L.I.D.)<\/a>, now offers a new source of inspiration: professional educators and administrators who have volunteered to offer their support and knowledge through a recently launched mentoring program.<\/p>\n

\"D.E.M.O.\"
Current Neag School student Sarah Hodge \u201915 (ED) connects with Gerardo Heredia, principal of SAND Elementary in Hartford, Conn., during the kickoff event for the new D.E.M.O. mentoring program, held this past January on the UConn Storrs campus. (Photo Credit: Ryan Glista\/Neag School)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Known as Diverse Educators Making Outstanding Change (D.E.M.O.), the mentoring program is designed for students enrolled \u2013 or those with an interest in enrolling \u2013 in the Neag School\u2019s five-year Integrated Bachelor\u2019s\/Master\u2019s (IB\/M) Program.<\/p>\n

According to Neag School assistant professor Joseph Cooper, who serves on the D.E.M.O. committee, the mentoring program has been created to improve achievement, retention, and engagement among students of color in the Neag School\u2019s pre-teaching and teaching programs. Such a mentoring program may be especially vital at this time, given the disproportionate number of students of color to teachers of color in the state of Connecticut. According to the State Education Research Center, almost half of Connecticut students are of color, whereas less than one in five teachers are of color.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Neag School of Education\u2019s program is the first to pair a mentor with a mentee of color in the K-12 education system,\u201d Cooper says. \u201cWe want every student to be confident in their ability to grow and to impact change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[D.E.M.O.] is a sign of the investment the Neag School is making in developing social and emotional safety for all students, but particularly for students of color who feel isolated in some of their classes and field experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Vonetta Romeo-Rivers, D.E.M.O. mentor<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The effort to launch D.E.M.O., says Neag school academic advisor Mia Hines, stemmed from the School\u2019s ongoing work with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)\u2019s Networked Improvement Community (NIC), which specifically aims to increase the percentage of black and Latino males within teacher preparation programs. Today, only 2 percent of public school teachers are black males, and even fewer are Latino, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.<\/p>\n

\u201cD.E.M.O. was formed because we are not only looking to increase our recruitment and retention efforts of black and Latino males, but all students of color,\u201d Hines says. \u201cOur hope is to increase the amount of students of color interested in teaching \u2013 which will, in return, increase the number of students and mentors we have within our D.E.M.O. program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creating Connections<\/strong><\/p>\n

This past January, D.E.M.O. hosted a kickoff event to help connect students of color in the Neag School teacher preparation program with mentors, who are all current teachers of color. Neag School student and aspiring schoolteacher Kimberly Duhart \u201919 (ED) was among those to stand up and share her favorite elementary-school memory before the gathered crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy second-grade teacher was the one who helped me realize my potential,\u201d Duhart said. \u201cShe put me in the school\u2019s gifted and talented program when others teachers wouldn\u2019t have put me there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duhart\u2019s inspiration and second-grade teacher, Dee Walters of Columbus Magnet School in Norwalk, Conn., also has joined the D.E.M.O. effort. She and Duhart were among the group of 87 mentors and mentees present at the Jan. 28 kickoff.<\/p>\n

At the January event, mentees selected three potential mentors by engaging in a \u201cspeed mentoring\u201d process similar to speed dating; each student had brief, yet engaging discussions with one mentor before striking up a new conversation with another. Mentors include practicing teachers, as well as education administrators and UConn faculty and staff.<\/p>\n

Mentor Vonetta Romeo-Rivers, director of performance, evaluation, and talent development for Manchester Public Schools, says D.E.M.O. is a worthwhile investment that will help alleviate the isolation students of color may experience in the classroom.<\/p>\n

\"D.E.M.O.
Diverse Educators Making Outstanding Change (D.E.M.O.) is a new mentoring program designed for students enrolled \u2013 or those with an interest in enrolling \u2013 in the Neag School\u2019s five-year Integrated Bachelor\u2019s\/Master\u2019s (IB\/M) Program. (Photo credit: Ryan Glista\/Neag School)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201c[D.E.M.O.] is a sign of the investment the Neag School is making in developing social and emotional safety for all students, but particularly for students of color who feel isolated in some of their classes and field experiences,\u201d she says. \u201cListening to the stories [mentees] shared was sobering and reinforced the need for this type of venture. I\u2019m honored to do my part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper says each student in the program will likely be paired with a mentor within the month. In addition to the program\u2019s larger, more formal events such as the D.E.M.O. kickoff, student organization L.I.D. will hold biweekly meetings with mentees. These smaller meetings will allow for in-depth discussion and time for mentor-mentee pairs to \u201cunpack\u201d challenges and possible solutions in the education system \u2013 starting with discussions regarding communication between educators, parents, and students of color.<\/p>\n

Many educators, Cooper says, tend to communicate in a way that can stigmatize students of color, rather than using supportive language and showing awareness of these students\u2019 backgrounds.<\/p>\n

And this is where the Neag School and L.I.D. steps in, said Tracey Lafayette \u201915 (ED), a curriculum and instruction student and L.I.D. president, on D.E.M.O. Night.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we are creating connections,\u201d she said. \u201cMentors know how hard it is to become teachers in a field where people don\u2019t look like you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neag Schol student and elementary education major Thu-Anh Nguyen \u201917 (ED), who is Asian-American, says this new connection with a practicing teacher who can guide her in her career path is what drew her to the mentoring program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren\u2019t a lot of Asian-American teachers, so our culture and beliefs aren\u2019t explored in school,\u201d Nguyen says. \u201cWe need to be able to promote those.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want to become a D.E.M.O. mentor? Contact Mia Hines at\u00a0<\/em>mia.hines@uconn.edu<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or Dominique Battle-Lawson at\u00a0<\/em>dominique.battle-lawson@uconn.edu<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for more information.<\/em><\/p>\n

To learn more about the Neag School\u2019s IB\/M Program, visit\u00a0<\/em>teachered.education.uconn.edu<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For students of color interested in pursuing a career as a schoolteacher, the Neag School, in partnership with student-led organization\u00a0Leadership in Diversity (L.I.D.), now offers a new source of inspiration: professional educators and administrators who have volunteered to offer their support and knowledge through a recently launched mentoring program. Current Neag School student Sarah Hodge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2455],"class_list":["post-202559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 13:53:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202561,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202559\/revisions\/202561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202559"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=202559"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=202559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}