The 2016 elections left many wondering how their lives might change with a new administration in the White House. For Zach Stumbo, a graduate student in theory and practice in teacher education, it meant accelerating his plans to get married. Stumbo and his partner feared a potential reversal or challenge to the Supreme Court ruling that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples.

After 10 years of working in rural schools, Stumbo entered UT’s cultural studies in educational foundations program. As part of the Theory and Practice in Teacher Education program, Stumbo was able to combine his experience in the classroom with his social justice and equity interests. He discovered a lack of research on the experiences of married LGBT teachers in the US, and the foundation for his own research began to take shape.

An associate professor of math education has been awarded a $1.4 million National Science Foundation grant to recruit and prepare secondary science and mathematics teachers.

Lynn Hodge, associate professor of math education in the Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education (TPTE), has been awarded a grant through the NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. The scholarship program was created to encourage STEM majors and professionals to become K-12 teachers in their given field.

The project, VolsTeach for Appalachia (VTA), is a collaboration with Pellissippi State Community College (PSCC) and school districts in the Appalachian region of Tennessee. By engaging students in the Tennessee Promise program, which provides two years of free community college to the state’s students, the project will enable transfer students in STEM majors to graduate from UT with a minor in education and teaching certification within four years. Hodge and her team plan to recruit and prepare community college students to teach math or science in Anderson County, Campbell County, Claiborne Count, Lenoir City, and Sevier County school systems.