DATE: 4 p.m. Jan. 23, 2007.

EVENT: Wendy Kopp, president and founder of Teach for America, will discuss the problems of inequity in education and how these problems can be solved.

Teach for America is a national corps of recent college graduates teaching in rural and urban schools This year 4,400 corps members from all academic majors are teaching in more than 1,000 schools in 25 regions across the country to promote educational excellence and equity. More than 12,000 alumni of the program continue to work for educational equity in the United States.

Currently, there are 110 recent U-M graduates who are spending two years teaching in the program, which makes U-M first in the nation, along with the University of California at Los Angeles for the number of volunteers. In 2006, U-M was first in the nation in applications, with 242 students volunteering for the program.

Grace Chen is a U-M senior who plans to teach in rural North Carolina through Teach for America this year after graduation.

“Throughout the more than 16 years I have spent in school, I have had incredible support from teachers, advisors and a community that has invested in me,” said Chen, a U-M campus campaign manager. “I think every child deserves the same opportunity for an excellent education, regardless of where he or she is growing up. Educational inequity is an issue that our generation can do something about and I intend to start fighting the achievement gap.”

Kopp, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, proposed the creation of Teach For America in her undergraduate senior thesis in 1989. At the age of 21, Kopp raised $2.5 million of start-up funding, hired a skeleton staff and recruited 500 men and women to teach in six low-income communities across the country. She has spent the last 17 years working to expand the organization.

In her book, “One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way” (Public Affairs, 2001), Kopp describes how she created and built the program and what it will take to realize its vision that one day, all children in the nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.

PLACE: Michigan League Ballroom, 911 North University Ave, U-M Central Campus. For a map, visit: http://www.umich.edu/~info/maps.html.

SPONSORS: The Division of Student Affairs and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Teach for America