Fast Track to Teaching

GAMBIER, Ohio (November 4, 2005) Kenyon students interested in teaching as a career can now take advantage of a best-of-both-worlds opportunity. Under a recently approved arrangement with Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, Kenyon graduates can spend a year earning a master of arts degree in teaching (MAT) along with the certification needed to teach in public schools.

"In five years, they can obtain a first-class undergraduate liberal-arts education at Kenyon, plus an MAT and certification from a school, Earlham, whose educational philosophy is fully compatible with Kenyon's," says Peter Rutkoff, the Robert Oden Professor of American Studies at the College.

Under the terms of the agreement, which was concluded in October, Earlham will make provisions to bring Kenyon students to its campus and to provide them with special consideration for admissions, including waiving the application fee and guaranteeing an interview for all students with a grade point average of 3.0 or better.

Earlham's MAT program begins in June and leads to licensure the following May. After licensure and while teaching in a school, students take one more course designed to help support them in the first full year of teaching. Completion of that course leads to the MAT. The program offers licensure in social studies, English/language arts, mathematics, science, and modern foreign languages, all at the middle and high school level.

Rutkoff, who helped develop the agreement, notes that the like-minded educational philosophy of the two schools drew Kenyon to the link with Earlham's program. "Their philosophy of teaching, Quaker-based and humanistically informed, seemed right for our students and the needs of public education today," he says. "The small and intimate nature of the program gets graduate students into the classroom for teaching experience almost immediately."

Stew Peckham, director of Kenyon's Career Development Center, notes that "Kenyon has always had a high percentage of students interested in teaching." The Earlham program is a practical choice for those who wish to teach in public schools, he says. Because the students earn their degree and certification in one year, "it's both cost and time efficient."

--Tim Tibbitts