Social Innovation Fellow Alumna Fumi Agboola Featured on WRAL

Social Innovation Fellow Alumna (2017-2018): Fumi Agboola

On January 24, 2019, Social Innovation Fellow Alumna Fumi Agboola was interviewed on WRAL NEWS about her studies on teacher diversity. Her story was apart of WRAL’s news series about teacher recruitment and diversity in North Carolina’s public schools and colleges of education.

In her own words, Fumi described how she achieved the accomplishment of being featured on the news platform. She said that “over the summer, I interned at the Department of Public Instruction through the Marian Drane Graham Scholars program. I completed a capstone project with entitled, “The Enrollment of Students of Color in Education Preparation Programs in the UNC System and the Placement of Minority Teachers in North Carolina.” WRAL contacted the department to do a story about the teacher diversity gap in the state. As a result, I was interviewed by WRAL about my research!”

During her interview, Fumi gave a lively presentation about her capstone research project. She cited interesting data that showed that there is a diversity gap between white and minority teachers in the state. For example, she highlighted a study that found that minorities made up 50% of the K-12 public school population, but in North Carolina 80% of public school teachers were white. As a result of this revealing study, the focus of her research project was to examine the teacher diversity gap. In her study, Fumi examined the diversity gap by studying teacher preparation programs. Through her studies, she found that there were more white students were enrolled in teacher preparation programs, which provided evidence for the racial gap among the state’s teacher population. Ultimately, Fumi closed her interview by highlighting the benefits of having more teachers of color in the state’s public school system.

Fumi Agboola is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a double minor in Nonprofit Studies and Business Entrepreneurship at NC State University.

Here is a link to Fumi’s informative WRAL interview: https://www.wral.com/nc-state-student-studies-teacher-diversity/18115940/