While many recent college graduates long to spend the summer recovering from their senior year, not so for the graduate fellows in the UA Transition to Teaching, or TTT, program.

The federally funded Transition to Teaching program, which places TTT fellows in schools along the U.S.-Mexico border, is in its second year and accepting new candidates for the 2013-14 academic year.

Those involved in TTT are preparing themselves for the rigors and rewards of teaching along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Border schools in Arizona have low graduation rates and high poverty rates, as well as a high percentage of English language learners. In many border school districts, principals must recruit teachers from as far away as the Philippines in order to fill crucial teaching positions in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the STEM fields. 

TTT seeks to address this by recruiting UA graduates in STEM subjects who want to make a difference in the lives of young people living on the border.

TTT fellows have the opportunity to engage in cross-border travel opportunities as well as field-based coursework along the border. Preparing to become STEM teachers, the fellows spend their summer gearing up to start full-time teaching jobs as they begin their online coursework for the Master of Education in secondary education.

Also, the program is unique. It provides fellows with a robust mentor network that meets monthly. The network includes experienced classroom teachers and content experts from Cochise College. This mentor team works closely throughout the year with fellows in the development of their teaching plans and their understandings of teaching and learning. And the network sponsors bi-annual panel discussions on cultural, environmental and social issues along the border.

TTT students, faculty and staff work hard to link STEM teacher resources at the UA to the needs of teachers in local partner communities. This kind of partner-based outreach provides rural communities in Southern Arizona access to University resources.

And we already have success stories.

In the first year of the program, TTT fellows were placed at high schools in Bisbee, Douglas and Rio Rico, and also in Coronado Elementary in Palominas.

Devin Berge, a former scientist and TTT fellow at Coronado Elementary, was named one of four new teachers of the year for Cochise County.

Principal Marylotti Copeland said: "Devin is a tech-savvy STEM professional who enthusiastically shares her scientific knowledge with her seventh and eighth-grade students."

Also, fellows provide the schools they teach in with new approaches to teaching STEM subjects. For example, math fellows, along with seven other math teachers from five partner schools, are being trained and will be using the innovative, story-based math program Ko's Journey in their classrooms. This summer, five science fellows will be taking a two-week field-based animal behavior class at the Southwest Research Station, which will prepare them to do field work with their students.

And we are looking for new fellows.

So, who would make a good TTT fellow?

We are looking for committed, potential STEM teachers who understand the importance and rewards of teaching in low-income schools along the border. A passion for math and science and a commitment to social justice provides the perfect foundation for a TTT fellow. Fellows receive $5,000 in funding to support their graduate studies and courses are offered online with monthly learning community meetings at the UA South campus in Sierra Vista.

Etta Kralovec is an associate professor of teacher education and the director of secondary education programs at UA South. Kralovec holds a doctorate in philosophy from the Teachers College at Columbia University. In 1996, she earned a Fulbright Fellowship to establish a teacher education program at Africa University in Zimbabwe. Kralovec recently gained a $2.2 million Department of Education grant for TTT, preparing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers for Title I schools in Arizona's Cochise and Santa Cruz counties.

Contact Lillian Hritz, a UA South project director, at lhritz@email.arizona.edu.

During the 1960s, the UA was a trailblazer in establishing a new type of interdisciplinary program for students: the Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs, or GIDPs.

Today, many of the UA's GIDPs are top-ranking programs in the nation, raising the institution's visibility and notoriety.

In a 2011 report the National Research Council of the National Academies released, assessing research-doctorate programs across the nation, the UA placed among institutions with at least 50 percent of doctoral students in ranked programs, with GIDPs receiving strong placement. The UA's GIDPs in Applied Mathematics, Cancer Biology, Neuroscience and Second Language Acquisition & Teaching are among those that persistently receive national high ranks.

And the UA has been in good company. Other institutions on the list included the University of California, Berkeley, John Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue University and also Harvard, Yale and Stanford universities.

This feature previews a UANews.org article about the UA's GIDPs. Andrew Carnie, who directs the UA GIDPs and takes great pride in the programs, said the attention and noteriety is well-deserved, largely because of the contributions of the students, faculty and staff engaged in such programs. 

Also the UA Graduate College interim dean, Carnie answered some of our questions about the role and importance of the UA's GIDPs, explaining how the programs have long been and continue to be the "crown jewels" of the University.

Q: What are the functions of the GIDPs, and why are they distinctive?

A: The goal of the GIDPs is to bring together faculty who are in traditional disciplinary units that allows them to access a kind of student that they wouldn't get in their discipline: a student who sees new ways of thinking about old ideas. They may want to have an adviser from psychology, linguistics and maybe somebody from French because their work is about French language acquisition. Students choose these programs because they see internationally renowned faculty participating and know this is something that is really unique. Another example would be students who take courses in engineering and work with surgeons to develop new tools that surgeons would then use to save lives. Something like that is really exciting to students.

Q: What are some of the other advantages the GIDPs offer?

A: One advantage in having more than 600 faculty members involved in the GIDPs is that you have a wide variety of people to work with. Students in GIDP might have 40 faculty members they could choose to work with. What the GIDP does is to allow those faculty to interact with each other through the student. So another important purpose of GIDPs is to bring together faculty who would not normally be in contact with each other. GIDPs bring values in other ways, too. So, faculty applying for grants can point out that they are working with students whose expertise will push research to another level and interacting with colleagues they otherwise might not interact with. Additionally, we see increased intellectual value because as scholars we often get set in thinking in particular ways and sometimes it takes a little kick in the pants from outside our areas to help us to think in new ways.

Q: The GIDPs are often referred to as the "crown jewels" of the UA. What does that mean?

A: The GIDPs represent a core value of the institution, and the UA views them as the generators of new innovation. Interdisciplinarity is one of the core values of the institution. If you look at the University's strategic plan, a central vision is the investigation of new ways of doing research. Innovation comes by breaking down disciplinary boundaries. Because we already do this in the GIDPs in a systematic and effective way, the GIDPs are representative of this core. It also is the case that the GIDPs, as a whole, are highly ranked and well-known programs that are well respected across the nation.

Photo credit: Mark S. Thaler/BioCommunications, Arizona Health Sciences Center

Contact: Andrew Carnie, the UA Graduate College dean, at carnie@email.arizona.edu or 520-621-2802.