EMU Today

YPSILANTI – Eastern Michigan University seeks to increase the number of minority teachers in urban areas through a distinct program that pinpoints possible candidates through their middle or high school years, then supports them throughout college.

The Pathways for Future Educators Program works with partner school career counselors to identify high school and middle school students who are interested in becoming educators. The program then supports them on their path to becoming teachers, beginning while the students are still in middle or high school.

Such support includes workshops on college success as well as assistance in establishing clubs for future teachers, and continues when students enroll at Eastern. There they receive academic, personal, financial, and social support services to assist them in achieving their goals.

Partner schools in this effort include the Eastern Michigan University Charter Schools, Cornerstone Schools, Detroit Public Schools Community District, Dundee Community Schools, Lincoln Consolidated Schools, River Rouge School District, Wayne-Westland Community Schools and Ypsilanti Community Schools.

A crucial aspect of the program is to get young people thinking about such a career early on in their schooling, to get past assumed notions about the profession and offer positive role models and scenarios.    

“What if we invited more young men and women to be educational leaders?” says Regina George, Director of the Pathways for Future Educators program at Eastern. “What if we told them how significant and satisfying it is to be a teacher?”

According to George, for many students a career choice to teach comes down to money, that is, what they’ve heard about wages and fears of not being able to support their families.

For first generation college students or students of color, the choice may also be influenced by having had few teachers who look like them to serve as role models.

“Sometimes, it’s just because no one ever invited them to consider a career in the field of education,” George says.

The Pathways program seeks to change those trajectories.

For more information about the program, please contact pathways@emich.edu or call 734.487.1060.   

About Eastern Michigan University

Founded in 1849, Eastern is the second oldest public university in Michigan. It currently serves 20,000 students pursuing undergraduate, graduate, specialist, doctoral and certificate degrees in the arts, sciences and professions. In all, more than 300 majors, minors and concentrations are delivered through the University's Colleges of Arts and Sciences; Business; Education; Health and Human Services; Technology, and its graduate school. EMU is regularly recognized by national publications for its excellence, diversity, and commitment to applied education. For more information about Eastern Michigan University, visit the University's website.