Some 35 UNC Asheville students recently spent a week visiting Savannah and Atlanta with UNC Asheville’s North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program. The Teaching Fellows traveled to Georgia to observe innovative, multicultural approaches to teaching.

Participants included Sarah Allison, Virginia Aughe, Jessica Autrey, Rachel Boing, Dustin Brendle, Lindsey Cashion, Hogan Carringer, Amber Chapman, Danny Coleman, Chip Davis, Claudia Friar, Emily Gustafson, Maggie Hatling, Morgana Heady, Victoria Hicks, Ashley Hoyle, Kyle Hunter, Laura Ingersoll, Alexa Jacobs, Sam Lambert, Katy Mashburn, Nich Mauriello, Mary Catherine Mills, Betsy Mosteller, Cassie Papaj, Leah Pressley, Brittany Pritchard, Alyssa Ray, Shanna Russell, Linda Simthong, Brian Smith, Emily Thewlis, Kellyn Todd, Ariel Vetter and Jessica Wilson.

The University’s Teaching Fellows visited five award-winning schools in Georgia cities that use inventive approaches to learning. Ranging from the state’s only public Montessori school to an elementary school featuring an International Baccalaureate program and required Spanish classes, students studied a diverse range of teaching methods. While in Atlanta, the Teaching Fellows participated in talks with Milken National Educator Award-winner Susan Green and “Freedom Writers” coordinator Kilpatrick Stockton at Booker T. Washington Comprehensive High School, the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr.

Students also toured Savannah, the Telfair Museum, the Massie Heritage Center, the Jimmy Carter Center, Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Martin Luther King Center, the Atlanta Aquarium and the Louvre Exhibit at the High Museum.

The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program is designed to attract high school seniors into the teaching field. Each year the program awards 500 North Carolina high school seniors a $26,000 scholarship for four years of undergraduate study. In return, students must teach four years in a North Carolina public school. UNC Asheville is one of the 17 public and private North Carolina colleges and universities approved to participate in the Teaching Fellows Program.

The University of North Carolina at Asheville, a four-year public liberal arts university located in the mountains of western North Carolina, has earned national reputation for its programs in the humanities, undergraduate research and environmental studies. UNC Asheville ranks fifth in the nation among public liberal arts colleges in the newest U.S. News and World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges.” For more information about UNC Asheville, call the Admissions Office at 800/531-9842.