TC Alumni who contribute to the TC Annual Fund can now read about their dollars at work by logging on to the student blogs from Support TC. There, they'll find accounts of life at TC blogged by four students- Jessica Cruz, Omari Keeles, Joe King and Sarah Norris- all of whom receive some Fund support.

"We struggle every semester to figure out who from the College should be signing the letters to our alumni asking them to make a gift," says Michael Sclafani, Director of the TC Fund. "Then we realized, who better to communicate the importance of contributing to the Annual Fund than the people who benefit directly from it?"

Cruz, who arrived in the U.S. speaking no English, is part of the International Education Development Program, focusing on bilingual bicultural education with a geographical concentration on South America. Keeles is a Howard University grad who wants to use his TC degree to return to Howard as a psychology professor. King, who uses a wheelchair, is pursuing a degree in social/developmental psychology and is interested in researching perceptions, stereotypes and stigmas associated with disability. Norris plans to return home to Seattle after completing her Master of Arts in Higher and Postsecondary Education with the goal of working in development or admissions and transforming her knowledge into positive change when she re-enters the workforce.

"I'm interested to see what direction they'll take it in," Sclafani says about the students' education and future careers. "I would like to follow them to the point they start to use their degrees in the real world. Because when you make a gift to Teachers College, you're not only affecting the students and the faculty, you're affecting the communities they go out and work in."

Published Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006