Teaching Fellowships: More Than Just Scholarships

Teaching fellowships: more than just scholarships

Charitable acts done by teaching fellows

Kimberly Bellamy, East Carolinian Staff Writer

January 19, 2006

There is no question that the ECU Teaching Fellows program is much more than a scholarship, evidenced by multiple non-profit projects and a large total of mentoring/tutoring hours taken on by students.

This fall, approximately a total of 920 mentoring/tutoring hours were completed and six non-profit service projects were done by the sophomore and junior classes.

These projects were sponsored by the Teaching Fellows service committee and included programs such as Toys for Tots, a holiday food drive and Adopt-a-Highway.

Brittany Sproat, junior elementary education major and co-chair for the service committee, helped organize the adopt-a-highway project.

"We go on Elm Street and clean up Elm Street at least four times a semester through American Clean Up," said Sproat.

In addition to those projects, the Teaching Fellows also raised more than 2,000 food items for local food shelters for homecoming. This will now be done annually.

Operation Christmas Child was another one of their projects. It ensures that children all over the world will have toys for Christmas by sending them a variation of small toys in a shoebox.

In less than two weeks, the Teaching Fellows met their goal of raising $1,000 for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The sophomore and junior Teaching Fellows must have a certain amount of mentoring/tutoring but most of the participation they do is voluntary.

They must tutor at least 10-12 hours per semester and they must participate in at least two of the four activities in the service committee.

"Our sophomores and juniors tutor one hour a week," said Martha Parrish, assistant director of NC Teaching Fellows.

"Our sophomores tutor with after school non-profit agencies or after school clubs and our juniors tutor one hour per week in a school setting in their licensure area. The fund-raising and some of the service projects are strictly volunteer and going a little bit above and beyond the requirement."

The sophomores tutor in local places such as Operation Sunshine, the Little Willie Center, Carver Library, PC Stars and the Boys and Girls Club.

"Our class tutors at different sites around Greenville, which includes inner-city youth organizations, Boys and Girls Club, elementary schools and other groups that need help," said Kyle Johnson, sophomore English education major.

For the spring, the Teaching Fellows will continue to participate in more fund-raising and mentoring projects.

The Teaching Fellows expect to have a total of more than 1,000 mentoring/tutoring hours by the end of the semester.

"Our sophomores with their after school tutoring programs will all develop a service project within the group they work, whether it be Wild Coats after school, Operation Sunshine or the Boys and Girls club," Parrish said.

"We're looking into adding a soup kitchen but that's not set in stone yet," Sproat said.

The ECU Teaching Fellows have made a definite impact last fall with 185 out of 500 total fellows in the state of North Carolina at the ECU.

The students in the program seem to recognize the importance of the program and what kind of opportunities the program gives them.

"Many people think that it is a full ride through college or just free money but in fact the Teaching Fellows program prepares us to become wonderful educators and great pillars of our society," Johnson said.