Convo: Wendy Kopp February 3, 2006

Wendy Kopp, founder and president of Teach for America, will present a convocation at 10:50 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 3 at the Carleton College Skinner Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

Kopp founded Teach for America after envisioning the idea as a Princeton University undergraduate. Teach for America became a national corps of recent college graduates who commit to teaching for two years in low-income urban and rural public schools. Since its creation in 1989, it has become an overwhelming success, training more than 14,000 members and reaching 22 regions across the country.

Kopp currently serves as chairman of the board of The New Teacher Project, a non-profit consulting group that helps school districts and states get better at acquiring and developing new teachers. As a spin-off of Teach for America, The New Teacher Project applies its parent organization?s knowledge and attempts to influence the hiring process of new teachers. Kopp also is on the boards of The Learning Project, Public Allies, and the Knowledge is Power Program Academy in the Bronx. She wrote the book ?One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach for America and What I Learned Along the Way? (Public Affairs, 2001).

In December 1994, Time magazine called Kopp one of the nation?s 40 most promising leaders under 40. She also has received the Jefferson Award for Public Service, Aetna?s Voice Conscience Award, the Citizen Activist Award from the Gleitsman Foundation, and the Kilby Young Innovator Award.

As Kopp wrote last year in Global Agenda Magazine, ?As [Teach for America] recruits progress in their careers and gain influence across all sectors, they take with them the insight and conviction to work toward the fundamental changes necessary to get at the root causes of educational inequity.?

Interviews of convocation speakers by Carleton faculty and students are often available on the radio and internet through the ?Carleton Radio Forum,? provided by KRLX 88.1 FM, Carleton?s student-run radio station. The feeds and podcasts are free and available to the public through the KRLX web site (http://krlx.org) or through Apple?s iTunes Music Store.

For more convocation information and disability accommodations, call the Carleton college relations office at (507) 646-4308. For more information on KRLX programming, call (507) 646-4102.