By: Vincent Distasi
Contributor
Future Educators club wants to remind students that they have an education club.
Future Educators looks forward to making its presence known this semester with co-presidents special-elementary education collaborative major Madison Selander and elementary education major Cole Brown, seniors, taking the wheel and steering toward their goals: higher membership, building connection through focused meetings and activities and implementing a new committee system.
“As soon as we get that committee up and running,” Selander said. “I have a very strong feeling that that’s going to be what puts our club aside from others.”
The club is trying something new by starting a committee of “pre-leaders,” members who are working toward being a club leader in the future, where they get to engage more with fellow members and send surveys out to peers asking what they would like to see from Future Educators.
“In the two weeks that we’ve been running this so far, it’s already worked more than previous things that we’ve done,” Selander said.
Future Educators seek to grow aspiring educators’ skills in the field such as how to manage behaviors, how to look at an IEP, presentations, etc.
They also want to bond more with one another and grow their community.
“The biggest key element is a sense of community,” Brown said. “We’re constantly trying to get people to talk, mingle and share their stories.”
Future Educators have received additional support toward some of their activities from the dean of the College of Education, Christopher Trumbly.
According to Brown, the club has collaborated with numerous other clubs on campus such as the American Sign Language Club and Best Buddies.
They also have a partnership with the Connecticut Education Association. Through the CEA, Future Educators hold a lot of free events and membership involvement activities.
“That’s Connecticut’s largest state union in part of the National Education Association, or NEA,” Brown said, “which is the country’s union.”
A primary goal of Future Educators is to grow in membership, something that has been achieved according to the club’s adviser, professor Sherry Mitchell.
“Every day there seems to be more and more names,” Mitchell said. “Which makes me happy because that also means there’s more up-and-coming educators.”
This is Mitchell’s first semester as Future Educator’s adviser, who seeks to allow the student executives to call the shots and stated that they are “so independent.”
Future Educators meets every Tuesday from 5-6 p.m. in Room 201 at the Adanti Student Center or online on some Fridays from 5:30-6:30 p.m.
“You’re always going to leave feeling connected to people in the room.”
