Teachers Recruited at Harvard

College seniors from across the nation are being recruited by a new organization of recent graduates formed to improve teaching in America's inner cities and rural areas.

The non-profit corporation, called Teach for America, visited yesterday at Harvard's Office of Career Services. The group, one of whose founders graduated from Harvard this year, attracted about 25 students to its meeting.

"[In the schools] in these areas, they can't find warm bodies to fill the [teaching] places," said Whitney Tilson '89, one of the group's seven co-founders.

Tilson said Teach for America intends to attract the best college students in the country to train and eventually to teach in inner-city and rural public schools.

According to data provided by the new organization, U.S. schools will have to hire 1.5 million new teachers between 1988 and 1997, while facing the loss of up to 900,000 of the nation's 2.3 million teachers to retirement by the year 2000.

Corporate sponsors including Apple Computer, Inc., Merck, Mobil Oil, Morgan Stanley, Xerox Corporation, Prudential and Union Carbide Corporation are backing Teach for America. Start-up costs for the teaching group will reach $2 million in its first year, the group stated.

Harvard campus representative Linda D. Rottenberg '90 said yesterday she intends to publicize the program next February with a "Teach For America Day." The event will invite local school children to make a symbolic call for college students to enter the teaching profession.

Tilson said that although no overall shortage of teachers exists in the U.S. today, there is a dearth of qualified teachers in the inner cities and rural areas. Teachers qualified in math, science and foreign language are especially needed, he said.

Tilson also said he thinks there are too few minority teachers, which he sees as a problem for largely minority schools where, he said, there are too few role models already.

Teach for America expects to train 500 students from 100 top colleges across the nation this year, Tilson said.

Applications will be available after Christmas, and candidates must pass a simulated teaching session and interview, Rottenberg said.

Those selected will spend eight weeks in Los Angeles in an intensive training institute, intended to preparegraduates to teach and deal with culturaldifferences. The institute will count towardteacher certification, Tilson said.

"It's a rare opportunity. This is the firstchance in a long time to be part of something onthe cutting edge of America," said Sonja Brookins,one of two founders from Brown University