Education

Eric Hart: 1993 Teaching Fellow

Eric Hart: 1993 Teaching Fellow, Appalachian State University

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Eric Hart: 1993 Teaching Fellow
By
Kelly Hinchcliffe
, WRAL education reporter
This interview was conducted by email as part of a series on teacher diversity in North Carolina.
What years were you a Teaching Fellow, and what college did you attend?

1993-1997; Appalachian State University

Why did you apply to be a Teaching Fellow, and how did the program affect your life?

Truthfully, I applied as a result of a conversation my mother had with me while a junior in high school. She told me that it was going to be difficult, darn near impossible to pay for me to attend college and pay for my sister who was at UNC-Chapel Hill (two years ahead of me). I promised her that I would find scholarship money on my own and that she would never have to pay a dime for me to attend college; ever.

I was also awarded three additional scholarships at Appalachian State University that would have covered the cost of attendance, but at that time, I decided on Teaching Fellows because I could get a refund and at that time, I was broke. My 43-year-old self is somewhat ashamed that my 17-year-old self would think about my experiences in that manner, but that was the reality of my situation back in 1993.

The Teaching Fellows experience was outstanding, from the faculty to the students of whom I frequently spent a bit of time with. The downside, however, is that for the entire four years at Appalachian State University, I was the only African-American male elementary education major and often felt alone being the "single voice" for all things African-American and male.

What have you done since college, and what are you doing now?

My experiences since Appalachian State University have been short of amazing. After graduating with my B.S. in elementary education, I attended the University of Georgia and earned my master's in school counseling. I was supposed to move back to NC and start working as a guidance counselor, but I traveled to San Diego, California, for the American Counseling Association (ACA) conference and met with the faculty at the University of Tennessee after presenting a paper with a dear friend of mine who was attending UT at that time.

I ended up accepting an offer to study at UT and ended up earning my education specialist degree. After a three-and-a-half year stint as the director of Academic Enrichment Upward Bound and Math and Science Regional Center director, I moved back to Athens, Georgia, and worked as an academic counselor for several of the sports teams at UGA.

In 2006, I moved back to Appalachian State University working in academic services for student-athletes until an opportunity to move to Dover, Delaware, arose. I got married prior to relocating and my wife, Erin, and I began working at Delaware State University, under the leadership of then President, Dr. Harry L. Williams (currently CEO and Director of the Thurgood Marshall Foundation in Washington, DC).

After seven successful years working at DSU, my wife relocated to North Carolina A&T State University and served as the associate vice provost for enrollment management; she is now serving as Interim Chief of Staff; I transitioned to Greensboro six months later and accepted a fundraising position at Guilford College; I later transitioned to NC A&T State University where I currently serve as the associate athletic director and executive director for major gifts. Essentially, I have been in service to higher education since 1999.

Why have you stayed in (or left) teaching?

I never really got started, truthfully. I student taught at Colfax Elementary in the spring of 1997 and then served in a guidance counselor role at a middle school in Athens-Clarke County. The pivotal moment occurred during that trip to San Diego, California, when I met with the faculty of the counseling department in Tennessee. Had it not been for their offer for me to attend graduate school in Knoxville, I can safely assume I would have moved back to North Carolina and either started teaching or serving as a guidance counselor. Once I arrived in Knoxville and saw the type of impact I could make with young people while on a college campus, I never looked back.

What advice do you have for colleges hoping to recruit more people of color and men to study teaching?

Unfortunately since I have been on college campuses most of my adult life, I have been harping to colleagues and my spouse who is also on a college campus, to consider altering education curriculum (slightly) that provide opportunities for students to enter into the classroom much earlier than their student teaching experience.

I don't have data to support my opinion, so I want it to be known that there may be cutting-edge teacher education programs that do allow for experiences to begin earlier than spring of the junior year or spring of the senior year. But for those traditionalists who believe the only way you can enter into the school is with the successful passing of the Praxis I and Praxis II, bologna!!

If you want young people to get "hooked," expose them early and often and don't make the assumption that they have to be full of pedagogy and educational theory to know how to teach. There is a place for that, I will agree, but if a man of color has the heart to educate and you essentially, by virtue of the curriculum, force him to wait until he could otherwise change his mind and transfer into another major; shame on the academy.

What advice do you have for schools hoping to retain people of color and men as teachers?

Simply stated, increase teacher pay, period! That transcends color and gender. That's not a person of color or man versus woman issues, that a knock against the education sector as a whole.

Somewhere along the way, those who make decisions have devalued education to the point of devaluing funding structures that make the profession attractive enough to make a difference and earn a living.

What I have been blessed to earn in 19 years progressing through higher education institutions, would have taken me 25 to 30 years and several advanced degrees had I decided to teach, counsel, or go into a Principal or Superintendent role.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

While I never served in the elementary, middle, or high school sector in the traditional sense, I am an educator at my core. I have worked with first-generation high school students through the Upward Bound program and Math and Science Regional Center and in doing so, have helped many children achieve their dream of going to college. And while on college campuses, I have spent almost 19 years helping young people realize the privilege it is to experience college and to make choices that have an impact on the rest of their lives as well as those for whom they come in contact.

So while there were days and especially during the times when I was repaying back the Teaching Fellows loan, where I beat myself up for not teaching, I have been giving back in unique ways that I hope the Teaching Fellows program would be proud of what they produced.

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