HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. — Northern Kentucky University (NKU) is using grant money to create a pipeline for diversity in education. 

What You Need To Know

  • NKU is trying to create a more diverse pool of teachers in Northern Kentucky

  • The university received a $100,000 grant to create a pipeline for teachers

  • The strategy involves scholarship money for teachers of color

  • NKU’s College of Education also plans to start building an interest in education with high school students

 

University leaders say a lot of students in Kentucky schools are growing up without teachers that look like them, an issue the university hopes to address.

Growing up, Dr. David Childs, Associate Professor of Social Studies Education & History, didn’t really see a path to be an educator. That’s because he didn’t see a lot of teachers who looked like him.

“I remember my teachers by name that I had that were of color, and not to say that my white teachers did not help me. But it was often the African American teachers that I just responded to better,” he said. “Students perform better when they have a teacher that can relate to them, socially, culturally, and we just respond better.”

Childs said, in Kentucky, 95% of teachers are white women, while more than 46%  of students are people of color.

For the last eight years, Childs has been head of the diversity team within the College of Education at NKU. Within that role he’s been working on recruiting Black and brown students into education, but he’s been doing it, he said, on a “shoestring budget.”

Now, a $100,000 grant from the Kentucky Council of Postsecondary Education will help NKU make more of an impact, by facilitating the emergency certification of diverse educators. NKU will also spend $100,000 of its own.

“We have noted for a while, nationally, that there is a disturbing lack of diversity in the professional field. There are not a lot of teachers of color, and that is especially true in Kentucky,” said Dr. Ginni Fair, Dean of the College of Education. “Our students of color don’t see themselves in their teachers, in their own preparation, and so they often don’t consider it a career path, because they don’t see themselves in their teachers.”

Fair said NKU will use the money in three ways.

The first is to immediately address the issue by providing scholarships to people of color who have degrees to complete NKU’s Master of Arts and Teaching. NKU is partnering with Erlanger/Elsmere, Newport and Covington Independent school districts, which have the most diverse student populations in the region. The grant will focus on middle and high school teachers.

Secondly, NKU will also establish a pipeline by connecting with current high school and undergrad college students of color to build their interest in education.

Finally, NKU wants to ensure all candidates are well equipped to go into diverse classrooms through a cultural competency curriculum.

NKU plans to support up to 10 emergency certified middle or high school teachers, using the Master of Arts in Teaching pathway. Teachers will be employed in their respective school districts from 2022 to 2025 and will complete the master’s program by summer 2024.

Childs said he thinks the programs will go a long way in making more kids like him believe they can do what he does now.

“They can see themselves in that person. Oh OK, this person went to college. This person can be a teacher. I too can be a teacher,” he said. 

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