The University of Wisconsin is once again one of the top contributors to Teach for America, with a total of 52 UW alumni recruited in 2014. 

This year’s applicant pool was also the most diverse in the organization’s 25 years, according to the TFA website. TFA recruits recent college graduates as well as professionals to teach in underserved schools, said Grace Shea, the UW Campus campaign coordinator for TFA.

She said many people mistake it for a volunteer service, but it is not.

“Rather, it helps recruit, train and place corps members in classrooms as fully certified teachers for a minimum of 2-3 years,” she said.

Shea, who has already been accepted as a 2015 Metro Atlanta Teach For America Corps Member, said the number of UW alumni who are corps this year didn’t surprise her, as the university is typically one of the highest contributors of alumni.

Shea said UW frequently churns out a high number of students for TFA because UW is service-oriented and has an outstanding quality of education.

“It is a testament to the quality of students at UW,” Shea said. “Students here are also highly involved in extracurricular activities and are truly becoming leaders. I definitely think that’s one thing UW excels at – educating and creating leaders.”

Sam Sherwood, the TFA recruitment manager for UW, said in Madison, he spends most of his time meeting with people, sharing information about the TFA and helping with the application process.

He said he joined the corps after graduating from Grinnell College in 2012 and has been teaching high school biology in the Chicago Public School system for the past two years. Sherwood refers to the experience as “eye-opening.”

“I grew up in Seattle and went to a public high school that was one of the best in the state, so I didn’t really realize how lucky I was to have such a great resource at my disposal,” he said. “I never really fully understood until I entered that classroom on the west side of Chicago for the first time that not all kids receive the same type of education that I received, simply because of the color of their skin or their zip code.”

This semester will also see the commencement of the Badgers Teach For America student org, which Shea started.

Shea said this is the first true student organization TFA will have on campus and she hopes to attract students from various majors to talk educational inequity, social justice and diversity as it pertains to current events.