Shanee Brown '12 was selected for one of 25 Aspiring Teachers of Color Fellowships from the Wilson-Rockefeller Brothers Fund, according to a Jan. 13 press release. The award provides a $30,000 stipend to complete a master's degree in education and guidance toward obtaining a teaching certification, according to the release. Brown is one of many Dartmouth students and alumni who have been selected for competitive teaching fellowships in recent years.
Brown said she always knew she wanted to be a teacher, but experiences at her underserved Bridgeport, Conn. high school and at Dartmouth shaped her interest in pursuing the fellowship, she said.
"A teacher in my high school said a lot of very discouraging things to my class," Brown said. "She said we'd never become doctors or lawyers or be successful. It was really jarring to all of us. Something that major stays with you."
At Dartmouth, Brown said she learned of the large discrepancy between educational opportunities available to inner-city students and those from more affluent backgrounds.
Brown said she would like to teach high school English and that this influenced her to be an English major. Originally she planned to pursue an education minor, but decided to focus her undergraduate studies on English since she knew she would like to pursue graduate studies in education, she said.
Recipients are also required to commit to teach for three years in a high-need public school.
Brown said she heard about the fellowship when meeting with education professor Andrew Garrod to finalize her Dartmouth Plan. He mentioned the fellowship and she remembered it later when she was trying to decide what to do after college, she said. She realized it would be a great opportunity, she said.
Brown was notified of the decision in early December, after making it through a second round of 39 national finalists, she said.
Brown is currently applying to five Masters of Arts in Teaching programs, three in New York City and programs at Brown University and Harvard University, she said. Most of these programs start in the summer and last for a year. Though she "can't say definitively," Brown plans to pursue an education career "in some way, shape or form" after her fellowship, she said.
"I definitely want to teach for at least three years, maybe more," she said. "I definitely want to move up and become a principal or administrator and be a professor one day. I want to publish works on education reform."
Extracurricular activities at Dartmouth also shaped Brown's interest in education, Brown said, adding that her volunteer experience at Dartmouth was "profound."
"If I didn't have volunteer experiences at Dartmouth, I'd be a very different person," she said.
She was the student director for Habitat for Humanity and mentored a high school student through the Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth program during sophomore summer.
"He was a little brother to me," she said.
Brown said she enjoyed working with Habitat for Humanity because she got to work with students and members of the Upper Valley who care about social justice, she said.
She said she is committed to "providing people with homes and making sure they can keep them."
"It's outside of education but also closely tied under the umbrella of social justice," she said. "Someone can't have a good education if they do not have a home. Social justice issues are all tied together."
Many Dartmouth students apply to teaching-related fellowships or programs, such as Teach For America. Brook Jackling '10, currently in her second year in the Teach For America program, said she applied because she had always been interested in teaching.
"At Dartmouth I had experiences and took classes having to do with the achievement gap and got interested in that side," she said.
Jackling said that although some people pursue corporate jobs after Teach For America, she plans to stay in education.
"It's been really, really great," she said. "I've gotten a lot more leadership skills from this than friends who are doing office or corporate-type jobs. It's a great opportunity for graduates to have a lot of responsibility out of college."
Jackling is a former member of The Dartmouth Staff.
