Teach for America founder and President Wendy Kopp told the story of her organization to an audience of TFA hopefuls last night, accompanying a wave of on-campus recruitment for the organization in recent weeks.
TFA places recent college graduates as teachers at public schools in low-income communities around the country.
According to Patrick Pontius, TFA's mid-Atlantic recruitment director, Penn is a prime location for Kopp to speak. The organization receives between 75 and 90 applications from Penn students each year and accepts approximately 30 percent of those applicants -- 15 percent more than the national rate.
Kopp discussed her personal commitment to the organization and encouraged students to apply soon, as the application's deadline is less than a week away.
"It makes such a huge impact in the lives of the kids they're teaching," Kopp said. "When kids are given the opportunities they deserve, they excel."
Kopp billed the organization as leadership training for "corps" members. "They're doing what an effective leader would do in any context," Kopp said. "They operate with such a sense of purpose and such a level of relentlessness."
Pontius added that many participants use TFA as a skill-building period between college and graduate school.
Members of the TFA corps must commit two years to teaching in the same school; however, 60 percent of the program's alumni stay on for three years or more.
Many of the approximately 100 audience members were prospective TFA participants looking to see if the program was right for them.
"I've heard very glamorized stories about Teach for America," College junior Katrina Liu said. "I felt like, if I came and talked to Ms. Kopp, I would have a more realistic picture of the program."
Kopp started the organization in 1989 after writing her undergraduate thesis on disparities in public education as a senior at Princeton University. A graduate of a well-funded public city high school in Dallas, Kopp was "an unlikely person to start Teach for America," she said. "But I started sensing I wasn't alone. There were thousands of motivated, driven people who were searching to make a real difference."
Kopp received a grant from the Mobil Corporation that funded the early days of the organization. School districts in three major cities and three rural communities agreed to take the first group of 489 corps members.
Kopp said that, while many potential donors thought the program would fail, her idealism helped carry it through its early stages.
"There can be advantages to youth and inexperience," she said. "We're not disillusioned, but committed."
Kopp acknowledged that the organization still has much to achieve, however.
"On one level, much has been accomplished," she said. "But on another level, it's impossible to engage in this and feel a real sense of satisfaction. Every day we see the disparities in our country playing out in the lives of our kids."
The Fox Leadership Program sponsored the event at Hillel Auditorium as a part of its Speakers Forum.
