In partnership with NC State’s College of Education, NCCU's School of Education will enhance an educator mentoring initiative to support future teachers of color and bilingual teachers who participate in the Leadership Institute for Future Teachers (LIFT) program. Students will be paired with a veteran teacher mentor and an educator advocate to meet regularly throughout a year for mentorship efforts.
NCCU School of Education faculty members are leading the coordination and evaluation of the mentorship program. University faculty will also train teachers to support LIFT students.
“This is validation of the great collaboration and partnership that these two great institutions have with each other. Burroughs Wellcome Fund has truly shown us, multiple years now, that they are committed to help growing an ethnically and racially diverse teacher workforce in North Carolina by investing in high quality students in North Carolina,” said Gregory Downing, Ph.D., grant principal investigator and assistant professor of math and science education in the NCCU School of Education.
With a new $15,000 grant from The Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the program will help to expand diversify mentorship efforts in teacher development and to drive educational equity initiatives in North Carolina.
In 2020, The Burroughs Wellcome Fund awarded NCCU $10,000 to incorporate the initial mentoring component of a three-year, $1.2 million National Science Foundation-funded project awarded to NC State.
NC State’s College of Education developed LIFT in 2020 to introduce high school seniors of color and bilingual high school seniors from across the state to the teaching profession and develop their leadership skills. As part of the year-long program, LIFT participants receive mentoring from veteran teacher leaders who host monthly virtual coaching sessions in small groups.
