Among the many perks of attending Teachers College is New York itself, city of constant spectacle.

But for the more than 50 TC students who stepped bleary-eyed off a bus and into the early morning stillness at Rockefeller Center on Wednesday, the goal was to do more than simply watch from the sidelines.  They had come to participate in that most primal of all Gotham rituals: getting on camera at The Today Show.

Armed with TC signs, banners and pom-poms and wearing white “TC Week” t-shirts, the students – led by Bobby Cox, the new TC Student Senate President, and Tom Rock, Executive Director of Enrollment Services – were on a mission to spread the word about TC’s 125^th anniversary celebration. They jockeyed with tourists from around the country to win the attention of the show’s audience wranglers and chat with the on-air anchors –Savannah Guthrie, Willie Geist, Natalie Morales and Al Roker.

At 7:00 a producer launched the 30-second countdown, and then Today went live, leading with the jail-cell suicide of the Ohio kidnapper Ariel Castro and the Congressional vote on a military strike in Syria. (The softer stuff came later: Valerie Bertinelli dishing on the season finale of “Hot in Cleveland” and supermodel Gisele Bundchen and quarterback Tom Brady gushing about their new showpiece home in LA.) In the background, the TC students waved their pom-poms and cheered.

Finally came the big moment: Al Roker, making the rounds of the audience, stopped in front of the TC entourage. On cue, Bobby Cox told him, “We’re from Teachers College, but we’re not all teachers. We’re celebrating 125 years of leadership in health, education and psychology.” Nearby, Clifton Shambry, a first-year student in the College’s Higher Education program, successfully battled for a cameo photo with Savannah Guthrie.

The cameras rolled. The students high-fived.

Mission accomplished.

Published Thursday, Sep. 5, 2013