After Service, School

They clap. They cheer. Sport­ing City Year uniforms and wide grins, they greet students as they arrive at school. 

Each morning, City Year AmeriCorps members stand outside of their assigned school buildings and welcome students. Operat­ing across 29 cities in the United States, City Year members serve in schools with students in grades 3–10. The schools in which they work are often high schools with lower completion rates and the elementary and middle schools that feed into those high schools. Some City Year members go into their service year knowing they want to teach someday. Some come to that realization during their service. Others discover ad­ditional possibilities for working in the field of education. 

That’s where the Harvard Graduate School of Education comes in. For years, City Year alumni have attended the Ed School. Now, the organization is making the relationship with the Ed School official. This fall, in a collaboration with the school’s Admissions Office, the first City Year scholarship recipients will arrive on Appian Way. 

City Year CEO Jim Balfanz, a City Year alum, says, “Through this joint initiative, Harvard is in­novating with us to reduce the cost of graduate school and pro­viding our AmeriCorps members and alumni access to their insti­tution, renowned for its commit­ment to advancing education through research and innovation. We look forward to the positive impact our City Year members will have as they continue their educational journeys at such a distinguished institution.”

The collaboration will provide $10,000 tuition scholarships per year for up to two City Year appli­cants to the Ed.M. Program, plus application fee waivers and dedi­cated 1:1 support throughout the application process. These two new scholarships are available to City Year AmeriCorps members, alumni, and staff applying to any of the six master’s programs. 

As an AmeriCorps program, City Year offers a living stipend to members. After completing one year of service, they also earn a Segal AmeriCorps Educa­tion Award, which they can use to pay back student loans or apply to their studies at the Ed School or another institution. If they serve two years, they receive an additional education award. 

City Year, which began in Bos­ton in 1988, now has more than 40,000 alumni. Kanna Kunchala, City Year’s executive vice presi­dent and chief strategy officer, is one of them. He’s also an alum of Harvard College. Kunchala re­calls how the idea for the partner­ship started. 

“This all began when Jim Honan, Ed.D.’89, senior lectur­er at HGSE, whom I still teach with twice a year, reached out to me as he was brainstorming out­reach to potential HGSE candi­dates,” he says. 

A collaboration between the two made sense. “Our shared mis­sion-alignment and dedication to social justice laid the foundation for this collaboration,” he says. In a hypothetical Venn diagram of the Ed School and City Year, the overlapping area would show a common goal: preparing those who want to make a positive im­pact in the field of education. 

Jackie Spencer, assistant di­rector of admissions at the Ed School, says that one benefit of the collaboration is to illuminate the vast career opportunities in the field of education. “We abso­lutely want teachers to work in the classroom, but people don’t realize that education is an en­tire field,” she says. “There are so many ways you can be in educa­tion outside the classroom.” 

From nonprofits, to policy, to think tanks, to educational media, the possibilities for those who want to study education and serve students are virtually limit­less, she says. 

Spencer hopes that this joint initiative will help to demystify both the Harvard name and the process of applying to graduate school. Specialized information sessions and outreach add an extra motivator for students who might not have previously consid­ered a school like HGSE. 

“We want students to know that they shouldn’t self-select out of the process,” she says. “HGSE is very welcoming, communi­ty-based, and mission-driven. Everybody who comes to HGSE absolutely belongs at HGSE.” 

Balfanz says, “City Year is thrilled to collaborate with the Harvard Graduate School of Ed­ucation. We believe that young people, regardless of back­ground, should have access to the knowledge, skills, and opportu­nities to thrive in career, college, and life.” 

Spencer is excited to see the collaboration continue to bloom. “I think this can be a way to reach people who we hope will consid­er education. Especially now,” she says, “because we need peo­ple who are passionate about ed­ucation in the field.”

Sarah Garfinkel, Ed.M.’20, is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and McSweeney’s. She is also a teaching fellow at the Ed School