“Mister” director helps teachers become leaders

November 2007

Roy Jones, project director for the Call Me Mister Program, is taking his work beyond our campus, spreading the message of this unique mentoring program to others

Jones’ latest outreach effort was serving on the advisory board “Teachers as Leaders.” The board, established by the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, is based on the idea that the corporate sector plays a unique role in developing teaching as a career of choice for the most promising talent in any given society.

Deutsche Bank recognizes the essential value of teachers in communities around the world with inadequate resources – from distressed urban settings, to poor rural areas, to post-conflict nations struggling to alleviate poverty and promote gender, racial and ethnic equity. Nations around the globe face substantial challenges to meeting the demand for a talented and diverse pool of teachers to address the myriad issues presented in these contexts.

In the United States, the most acute manifestations of the teacher shortage are around race and gender. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, black teachers represent 6.5 percent of the teacher workforce, and in New York City, black males represent a mere 4.4 percent of the workforce.

The disproportionate under representation of black male teachers in New York City requires strategies that address the intersection of several overlapping impediments which include an alarming high school graduation rate of approximately 30 percent, inadequate preparation for teaching licenses, as well as the growing social inequities facing black boys and men that have impeded their participation and advancement in education and employment.

Learn more about the Mister program at www.callmemister.clemson.edu.