Morgan Twiss of Central City graduated this weekend from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's inaugural class of the Teacher Scholars Academy, an honors-style program focused on developing community-minded educators to bolster the workforce that launched in 2019. She student-taught at Elliott Elementary and has been hired to teach second grade there in the fall.
Craig Chandler, University Communication
Morgan Twiss of Central City graduated this weekend from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's inaugural class of the Teacher Scholars Academy, an honors-style program focused on developing community-minded educators to bolster the workforce that launched in 2019. She student-taught at Elliott Elementary and has been hired to teach second grade there in the fall.
Among the graduates walking across the stage this weekend to receive their degrees during commencement ceremonies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were more than 200 newly minted teachers.
Included in that number are 34 members of the inaugural class of the Teacher Scholars Academy, an honors-style program focused on developing community-minded educators to bolster the workforce that launched in 2019. Three others in the first class graduated early last December.
Thirty-one members of that cohort already have jobs lined up at schools in Nebraska and across the country, including Morgan Twiss, a Central City native who will teach second grade at Elliott Elementary in Lincoln starting this fall.
“I’ve pretty much always known I wanted to be a teacher,” Twiss said. “I like to figure out what motivates each student and build a relationship with them and figure out the best way to help them learn, and I continue to choose teaching because of those relationships.”
The unique program, funded through a donation from the William and Ruth Scott Family Foundation, put 40 students in close proximity as they started on their educational journey at UNL.
They lived together on the same residence hall floor, took classes together immediately upon arriving on campus, and have participated in volunteer and service opportunities throughout the community.
The experience was designed to emphasize community building among students, both within the Teacher Scholars Academy, as well as in the places where they will work and live, said Braden Foreman-Black, the program’s coordinator.
“When they are able to build those relationships, they have more meaningful classes together and deeper conversations, both within the class and back in the residence hall,” Foreman-Black said. “We’re hoping they continue to have those conversations even after they graduate.”
Twiss said as students socialized with one another, she gained a better understanding of the diverse communities she had little exposure to growing up in a rural part of Nebraska, as well as how to navigate those differences in a positive way.
“Teachers have a growth mindset and you’re always learning and taking in new information about how to best serve your students,” she said. “I feel like the academy definitely equipped me with the skills to navigate that.”
Rowan Foort, who came to UNL from Mount Prospect, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, called the Teacher Scholars Academy “a community of college students who are all really driven and engaged in the same thing I was engaged in.”
Foort, who will teach social studies at Goodrich Middle School next school year, said the program gave additional mentorship support, which in turn led to research opportunities studying how teachers can best honor the individual experiences of each student.
“I’ve really learned how to approach differences with a skillful mind full of curiosity and inquiry and how to focus questions on building community,” Foort said. “The students you’re serving probably shouldn’t be the first people you are learning from, so it gave us a jumping off point to meet them where they are.”
Foreman-Black said the Teacher Scholars Academy was also designed to help new teachers manage the increasing politicization of the education profession and engage in those debates in a positive way.
“At the end of the day, whatever values you have, as a teacher your job is to support, mentor, and uplift all of your students,” Foreman-Black said.
Twiss and Foort started at UNL in the fall of 2019 and were among the millions of college students across the country that were forced to finish the school year remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.
While the academy was founded to address an anticipated shortage of teachers in the state, that crisis has worsened in recent years as teachers have retired or left the profession entirely, creating vacancies in many school districts.
According to the Nebraska Department of Education, there are 768 school positions that are unfilled with fully qualified personnel this year, and 208 positions left vacant altogether.
The majority of those vacancies occurred in Southeast Nebraska, according to the 2022-23 Teacher Vacancy Survey Report. A total of 71 jobs remain vacant in the region, which includes Lincoln and Lancaster County.
The second-largest vacancy — 59 unfilled jobs — was reported in the Omaha metro area, according to the survey.
Foreman-Black said UNL designed the program to help build more resilient teachers to fill those positions and to develop a community where they can bounce ideas off one another and find solidarity when challenges arise.
“We’re really hoping to battle that five-year timeline after graduation, when most people will change jobs or leave teaching,” he said, “so we’ll be keeping an eye on those retention numbers.”
Graduating members of the inaugural cohort of the Teacher Scholars Academy say they plan to lean on one another as they enter classrooms across the state this fall.
“The biggest thing Teacher Scholars has given me is the realization that my support network as an individual educator and researcher is much wider than just the school I’m at or my family or where I happen to be,” Foort said. “I have people who care about me and know what teaching is like and can make sure I’m taking care of myself, too.”
Twiss said her experiences in the Teacher Scholars Academy have given her confidence, but added she also has dozens of other teachers to lean on, ask for advice, or voice concerns to as she enters the workforce.
“The community piece doesn’t end even though we are graduating,” she said.
Morgan Twiss of Central City graduated this weekend from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's inaugural class of the Teacher Scholars Academy, an honors-style program focused on developing community-minded educators to bolster the workforce that launched in 2019. She student-taught at Elliott Elementary and has been hired to teach second grade there in the fall.
Morgan Twiss of Central City graduated this weekend from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's inaugural class of the Teacher Scholars Academy, an honors-style program focused on developing community-minded educators to bolster the workforce that launched in 2019. She student-taught at Elliott Elementary and has been hired to teach second grade there in the fall.