NC State College of Education Selected to Host N.C. Teaching Fellows Program

RALEIGH, North Carolina — The NC State College of Education is one of five institutions in North Carolina that has been selected to host the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program, which is aimed at supporting students preparing for a teaching career in the fields of science, technology, engineering, math or special education.

The program will begin in the 2018-19 academic year, and applications will open Dec. 4.

The other four institutions selected for the program are Elon University, Meredith College, UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC-Charlotte.

“We are thrilled to be selected to participate in the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program,” said Mary Ann Danowitz, dean of the NC State College of Education. “The NC State College of Education is a perfect fit for the Teaching Fellows. We are North Carolina’s largest producer of STEM educators, and the teachers we graduate are among the most effective in the state.

“We look forward to welcoming Teaching Fellows who share our commitment to addressing North Carolina’s need for highly-qualified teachers in STEM and special education.”

The Teaching Fellows program was established to recruit, prepare and support students attending North Carolina’s top education programs for preparation as highly effective STEM or special education teachers in the state’s public schools. Students participating in the program will receive up to $8,250 per year in forgivable loans if they commit to teach in a STEM or a special education area.

The program is specifically designed to attract high-quality teachers to low-performing schools by offering an accelerated loan forgiveness schedule for Teaching Fellows who agree to teach in a low-performing school in North Carolina.

The five institutions were selected by the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Commission based on the criteria outlined in state law, including educator effectiveness, impact on student learning, passage rates for required licensure exams, early and frequent internship experiences for educator prep students, among other factors.

Each year since at least 1998-99, NC State has graduated the most students in North Carolina who have passed licensure exams in STEM education disciplines. The most recent data available shows that the college graduated 107 students who received their licensure in STEM-related fields in 2014-15. That’s 39 percent more than the next school in North Carolina. That same graduating class had a 100 percent passage rate on licensing exams.

In addition, according to performance reports from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, beginning teachers from NC State received accomplished or distinguished ratings in measures of teacher effectiveness in 2015-16 (when the most recent data is available), exceeding statewide averages in areas such as content knowledge, leadership ability and fostering good learning environments for diverse groups of students. Cumulatively, their averages across multiple variables ranked among the best in the state.

“I congratulate these five great institutions on being selected as partner campuses for the Teaching Fellows Program,” said Junius Gonzales, the senior vice president for academic affairs for the University of North Carolina System. “This new program will help recruit and retain high-quality teachers to areas of critical need in North Carolina.”

The Commission, which was formally appointed in September, is comprised of four deans from educator preparation programs, teachers, principals, a member from business and industry and a local school board member. The North Carolina Teacher of the Year, Principal of the Year, Superintendent of the Year, Chair of the State Education Assistance Authority (SEAA) Board of Directors and Director of the Teaching Fellows Program all serve as ex-officio members of the Commission.

North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program Highlights:

• The application for prospective Teaching Fellows will be made available in early December.
• The amount of the forgivable loan is up to $8,250.
• Any student with a high school, associate’s or bachelor’s degree is eligible. Even students who wish to transfer or change their majors are eligible.
• Teachers have 10 years to pay back the loan, either through cash repayment or loan forgiveness. In order to meet the loan forgiveness requirement, a teacher is required to serve one year in a low-performing school or two years in another public school for every year they were awarded a forgivable loan.
• The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program provides scholarships to roughly 160 future teachers per year.

Learn more about the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program

ABOUT NC STATE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION: Now in its 90th year, the NC State College of Education is the leading college of education in North Carolina. The college is the largest supplier of STEM educators, consistently ranks as the top teacher preparation program in the state across multiple variables, and has established a leadership pipeline for schools, community colleges and higher education in North Carolina. The college enrolls over 1,700 undergraduate and graduate students, and two-thirds of its faculty currently engage in 139 research projects funded through over $54 million in active research and development grants. U.S. News & World Report ranks the college in the Top 15 percent nationally among graduate schools of education. The publication also ranks the college’s online programs No. 29 and higher education program No. 19 in the nation.