The most talked-about and imitated program is UTeach, an initiative begun at the University of Texas in 1997. Science professor Mary Ann Rankin saw that the university offered no clear track for STEM majors who wanted to teach, so she and her colleagues tossed out the old model.
Recruiting of math and science majors would begin before they even hit campus. UTeach students would take the most challenging science and math courses but would also be paired with mentors at local high schools who would guide them through fieldwork every semester. Financial incentives would be available and UTeach would continue to nurture its graduates once they left for the work force.
"They put it all together," Cahill said.
The program is expensive but has worked. Almost 300 students are enrolled every semester, about 10 times as many as when it began.
About 85 percent of UTeach graduates go into teaching and of those, 80 percent are still teaching four years later.
Thirteen universities have adopted versions of the program in the past two years. Another batch are seeking federal funding to join the movement.
UMBC stepped up its production of STEM teachers, using some of the principles espoused by UTeach. It offers a four-year track for future math teachers instead of requiring them to obtain a math degree and then a teaching certificate, a combination that often took five years. Potential math and science teachers are encouraged to enter high school classrooms as early as their freshman year.
Sweigart is part of UMBC's Sherman Scholars program, which offers scholarship incentives to future math and science teachers and nurtures them through college and their early professional years.
'Keep the door open'
"Students are already deciding what they don't want to do with their lives by fourth and fifth grade," said Anne Spence, an assistant professor of engineering at UMBC. "So we hope to at least want to keep the door open for math and science instead of having that door close for them at an early age."
Spence has encountered many old biases in pushing math, science and engineering majors toward teaching. Fellow professors, administrators and parents are used to steering the best math and science students to research or lucrative corporate jobs. In recent years, however, UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski III and others have changed their thinking.
