{"id":5613,"date":"2015-03-20T15:41:38","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T15:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/?p=5613"},"modified":"2015-06-04T17:43:58","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T17:43:58","slug":"east-mpr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/2015\/03\/20\/east-mpr\/","title":{"rendered":"EAST program scholars talk with Minnesota Public Radio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2014\/03\/MPRLogo.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3946\" src=\"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2014\/03\/MPRLogo.jpeg\" alt=\"MPRLogo\" width=\"100\" height=\"88\" \/><\/a>Minnesota Public Radio&#8217;s Tim Post profiled Augsburg College&#8217;s East African Student to Teacher (EAST) program, which works to recruit and train teachers of East African descent in an effort to help close the K-12 achievement gap.<\/p>\n<p>The program, directed by\u00a0<strong>Audrey Lensmire<\/strong>, assistant professor of education, told Post that by &#8220;having more teachers of color in our K-12 system, their professional voice will be shared by their colleagues.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Post spoke with two current EAST scholars, <strong>Abdiasis Hirsi\u00a0<\/strong>and <strong>Asma Ibrahim<\/strong>. Hirsi, who teaches at Wellstone International High School, was born in Somalia and raised in Kenya. He shared with Post that when he was only 19, Hirsi\u00a0helped start a school in Nairobi to teach English to Somali refugees. Ibrahim, who shared with Post that she was born in Pakistan to Somali refugees, said she had a difficult time as a student in connecting with her teachers in Owatonna. She hopes to become a teacher to help students who are like her become comfortable enough to learn.<\/p>\n<p>EAST is funded by the Collaborative Urban Educator Program and received $390,000 for two school years including 2013-14 to 2014-15. Additional funding is now being sought from the Minnesota State Legislature. State Sen. Kari Dziedzic has introduced a bill to nearly double funding over\u00a0the next two years.<\/p>\n<p>Listen or read &#8220;<a title=\"Minnesota Public Radio on Augsburg College's EAST program\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mprnews.org\/story\/2015\/03\/19\/east-scholars-teachers\" target=\"_blank\">East African teachers connect with younger versions of themselves<\/a>&#8221; on the website of MPR News. Learn more about the <a title=\"East African Student to Teacher program at Augsburg College\" href=\"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/education\/east\/\" target=\"_blank\">EAST program<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minnesota Public Radio&#8217;s Tim Post profiled Augsburg College&#8217;s East African Student to Teacher (EAST) program, which works to recruit and train teachers of East African descent in an effort to help close the K-12 achievement gap. The program, directed by\u00a0Audrey Lensmire, assistant professor of education, told Post that by &#8220;having more teachers of color in &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,8],"tags":[3572,3638,3573,3568,849,3569,3570,902,3636,3574,2002,3571,3267],"class_list":["post-5613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty","category-in-the-news","category-students","tag-abdiasis-hirsi","tag-achievement-parity","tag-asma-ibrahim","tag-audrey-lensmire","tag-diversity","tag-east","tag-east-african","tag-education","tag-inclusion","tag-k-12","tag-mpr","tag-somalia","tag-tim-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5613"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5617,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613\/revisions\/5617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}