Teach For America Selects Kieffer

Houghton graduates are committed to making a difference in the world, and Katarina Kieffer ’09 will have the opportunity to do so through one of the most competitive programs in the country. Teach For America selected Kieffer to be a part of their 2010 national corps—a group of outstanding recent college graduates and working professionals who commit to teaching for two years in rural and urban low-income public schools.

Admission to Teach For America (TFA) is highly selective, with more than 46,000 applicants from many of the nation’s top universities vying for only 4,500 positions. Kieffer joins the nations’ most promising future leaders from all academic majors, career interests, and backgrounds in the effort to break the cycle of educational inequity.

 “The reality of inequity in our education system is shocking,” says Kieffer, a humanities and political science major who spent the last year living on the West Side of Buffalo serving as the coordinator of an afterschool program for high school refugees.  “Where you are born literally determines the quality of your education. Only 1 in 10 students from low-income communities graduate from college. 50% NEVER GRADUATE FROM HIGH SCHOOL. I was and continue to be blown away that discrimination and inequity is still so clearly present in this of all countries.” Teach For America is dedicated to expanding educational opportunities for children in low-income areas, and Kieffer is dedicated to making a difference. “My hope for the program more or less mirrors TFA’s mission, that all children deserve the chance to have a high quality education so that they can achieve their fullest potential. I hope to provide that for my students.”

Kieffer has been placed in Nashville, Tennessee, and will be teaching fifth graders beginning this fall. TFA has only been in Nashville since 2009, and although it is home to twenty-four post-secondary institutions, the Metropolitan Nashville Public School District struggles with an achievement gap across socio-economic lines. She will join 52 other corps members in the area to help shape and set the vision for TFA’s role within a new community and school system.

Linda Mills-Woolsey, Associate Academic Dean and Professor of English, believes that Katarina will make a tremendous impact through Teach For America. “She’s one of those students who make a difference wherever she is, putting her strong communication skills, curiosity, and sense of justice to good use.” “She is concerned about those less fortunate than she,” states Associate Professor of Political Science, Peter Meilaender. “She already has a year’s experience working with underprivileged youth in the Buffalo school system.”

“I may not be able to eradicate poverty and its painful effects,” states Kieffer, “but I can give students living in poverty a classroom where they are safe, know exactly what is expected of them, and affirmed in their journey as learners. Education is a key that can unlock the world for these students. They deserve the chance to succeed.”