NCTE Announces 2022 Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award Honorees

2022 cohort includes six literacy educators from across the United States.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Helen Peirce, hpeirce@ncte.org

Champaign, Illinois—The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has announced its 2022 Early Career Educator of Color (EC-EOC) Leadership Award honorees.

The EC-EOC Award supports early career teachers of color as they build accomplished teaching careers in literacy education. Award recipients benefit from robust professional learning opportunities, mentorship, and access to a supportive network of peers from across the country.

The award recognizes practicing preK to university-level literacy educators of color in their first five years of a paid teaching career. People of color refers to members of historically underrepresented groups: African American, American Indian, Asian American, Latinx, and Pacific Islander.

In 2022, NCTE was thrilled to have dozens of applicants from nearly 20 states.

“This is an exciting year for this program, which NCTE has funded for a decade. The incredible talent and leadership present in the cohort exemplifies excellence in literacy education and points toward exciting teaching careers ahead,” NCTE Executive Director Emily Kirkpatrick said.

The 2022–2023 EC-EOC cohort includes:

• Adedoyin Ogunfeyimi, an assistant professor of Composition in the Division of Communication and The Arts at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford (Bradford, PA)
• N’Kengé Robertson, a middle and high school English teacher at Detroit International Academy (Detroit, MI)
• Hiawatha Smith, an assistant professor of literacy education at the University of Wisconsin—River Falls (River Falls, WI)
• Kim Tate, a fifth-grade dual language teacher at International Prep Academy (Champaign, IL)
• Karen Tellez-Trujillo, an assistant professor in the Department of English and Modern Languages at Cal Poly Pomona (Pomona, CA)
• Curtis Wu, a high school humanities teacher at Prospect Hill Academy (Cambridge, MA)

Award recipients receive two years of support from a mentor, the opportunity to present or co-present at the NCTE Annual Convention, an opportunity to collaborate with NCTE leaders, and a plaque to recognize their participation. They will also participate in this summer’s EC-EOC Institute, taking place at the NCTE Homecoming 2022 in Louisville, Kentucky, from July 29 to 31.

 

About NCTE

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. For more than 100 years, NCTE has worked with its members to offer journals, publications, and resources; to further the voice and expertise of educators as advocates for their students at the local and federal levels; and to share lesson ideas, research, and teaching strategies through its Annual Convention and other professional learning events.

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