Southern University System President Ralph Slaughter (first row, fourth from right) pictured with The J.K. Haynes Teaching Fellows Program participants and staff (first row, left to right) Willa Moore, Praxis coordinator and Director of Skills Enhancement Technology Center in the College of Education, McKinley Williams, Timothy Lord, Shenard Brooks, Marcus Dunn, math instructor Carman Wilson, (second row, left to right) reading, writing teacher Katherine McCoy, André Colbert, James Dortez, Lorenzo McCoy, Ryan Lawrence, Benjamin Gray, and Rashad Hannah.

New Southern program recruits, guides male students

The J.K. Haynes Teaching Fellows Program, that seeks to address the under-representation of African-American males in the teaching profession, was announced during the fifth annual J.K. Haynes Teacher Preparation Conference in July.

The program recently wrapped up a five-week Praxis workshop to get students prepared for Praxis I, a basic skills examination measuring mastery in reading, writing, and mathematics.

According to Willa M. Moore, Praxis coordinator and director of the Skills Enhancement Technology Center in the College of Education, teacher education majors who cannot pass these exams are generally regarded as lacking the fundamental prerequisites for becoming an effective teacher and thus cannot enter the teacher education program.

The first session of J.K. Haynes Teaching Fellows Program this summer served 10 African-American males who have shown some interest in teacher education. The participants were Shenard Brooks, James Dortez, Benjamin Gray, Rashad Hanna, Timothy Lord, Lorenzo McCoy, and McKinley Williams of Baton Rouge; Marcus Dunn of Baker; Ryan Lawrence of Hammond; and Anrdré Colbert, Lafayette.

Southern University System President Ralph Slaughter, who supports African-American male student recruitment and retention, spoke to the group to about the importance of filing the void of African American male presence in the classroom.

“It’s very important for [African-American] young people in elementary, junior high, and high schools to see people in front of the classroom who look like you,” he said.

Supported through the Southern University System’s J.K. Haynes Teacher Education initiative, the summer workshop included instruction, computer assisted exercises, and Educational Testing Service (ETS) formatted assignments in between sessions. Other resources included Blackboard-based Praxis review exercises and game show simulations.

According to Kassie Freeman, System vice president for academic and student affairs, the J.K. Haynes fellows will be provided leadership development opportunities during the academic year and are granted a stipend for their work during the summer.

“I am delighted to announce on behalf of the Southern University and A & M College System, a new fellows program designed to address one plight facing black boys in classrooms across this nation – the dearth of teachers who look like them. Given the child development research which asserts that having positive male teachers is important to their holistic development, this program with its active commitment to increase the number of Black men going into teaching, will have exponential benefits,” said Freeman.

The J.K. Haynes Teacher Preparation Conference is an annual gathering of national scholars and expert practitioners, administrators, and faculty from the J. K. Haynes Consortium institutions that include Grambling State University, Southern University and A & M College, Southern University at New Orleans, Southern University at Shreveport, and public and private K-12 school leaders from the region who assemble to explore the issues regarding the educational preparation of teachers and their professional development.

The J.K. Haynes Consortium was established by Act 16 of the Regular Session of the 1995 Legislature. It is a comprehensive professional development and improvement group for teacher educators in the designated universities. The program is administered and hosted by the Southern University System and its member campuses.

The summer fellow’s workshop was hosted by the College of Education, Verjanis Peoples, dean.