Increasing Racial Diversity in the Teacher Workforce: One University’s Approach
Abstract
"In this article, we describe the extent of the diversity gap nationally and in the state of Maryland, where our campus--the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)--is located. We further describe how the framework that emerged from UMBC's Meyerhoff Scholars Program has been applied to our Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program, designed to increase the diversity of UMBC's teacher candidates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) certification areas. Finally, we discuss plans to expand our use of the framework to increase the diversity of teacher candidates across all certification areas offered at the university. We offer our experiences, not as prescriptive, but as illustrative of the role that institutions of higher education can play to assist states in closing their demographic gaps and creating more equitable public schools."
