For five years, a University of Pittsburgh summer academy has been building something the teaching profession badly needs: young people who want to lead classrooms, and who reflect the students they will one day teach.<\/p>\n
The School of Education<\/a>\u2019s Genius, Joy, and Love academy annually brings participants to campus for an immersive four weeks each summer. This year marked the program\u2019s fifth anniversary.<\/p>\n The academy was founded in 2022<\/a> by then-dean Valerie Kinloch, now president of Johnson C. Smith University, as a gift to the School of Education. Its aim has held steady: to inspire students of color, notably future Black educators, to enter a profession where they remain sharply underrepresented.<\/p>\n In Pennsylvania, about 7% of public school teachers are people of color, even as students of color make up roughly 40% of the state\u2019s classrooms, according to the commonwealth Department of Education\u2019s most recent educator workforce report<\/a>. State education officials have called Pennsylvania\u2019s teaching workforce the least diverse in the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n Program director Shallegra Moye frames that gap as more than a numbers problem.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this really serious cultural, social, economic mismatch between the teacher and the students and families and communities they\u2019re serving,\u201d Moye said.<\/p>\n Over four weeks, scholars receive mentorship, a college-preparation curriculum and a stipend, along with lessons in the deeper craft of teaching. The academy has grown each summer to about 20 scholars, each attending or having graduated from charter or Pittsburgh Public Schools campuses whose students are eligible for the Pittsburgh Promise<\/a> scholarship.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s group is made up of mostly rising high school seniors, college first-years and sophomores spread across several universities, each aiming toward a career in education.<\/p>\n Moye ties the work back to the three words in the program\u2019s name.<\/p>\n \u201cGenius, the value of what you are already gifted in. Joy, teaching and learning is joy. Love, it can be detrimental or helpful,\u201d she said. \u201cGenius, joy, and love are inevitable unless they are blocked by barriers. Schools and teachers can be barriers. Please don\u2019t be a barrier.\u201d<\/p>\n