Five recent graduates from Occidental鈥檚 Class of 2015 have committed to joining Teach For America鈥檚 teaching corps.
Teach For America is a selective national non-profit that places college students and recent graduates in high-need classrooms across the country. In the classroom, teachers work in partnership with communities to expand educational opportunity for children facing the challenges of poverty.
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instructors commit to teach for two years in low-income communities and are hired by the organization鈥檚 partner public schools across the country.
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Selected from more than 44,000 applicants, the five Occidental graduates are:
- Taylor Durhan, a kinesiology major from Seattle who is heading to Chicago;
- Megan Olayinka, a sociology major from Crovallis, Ore. who also will be teaching in Chicago;听
- Shaila Ramachandran, a biology major from Portland, Ore. who has been placed at a school in Los Angeles;听
- Emma Roberts, a sociology major from Dallas who will be teaching in Washington, D.C.; and
- Austin Wang, a kinesiology major from La Jolla who will teach in Hawaii.
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Each will undergo summer training sessions in their placement regions before beginning their new teaching jobs in the fall.听
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Over the last 25 years, more than 47,000 people from a wide variety of backgrounds have joined Teach For America. Most (about two-thirds) stay involved in education鈥攁s teachers, school leaders, district administrators, policy makers, advocates and in other roles.
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