What are you doing now? What have you been doing since MTC?

After Teacher Corps, I attended Stanford University, where, in 2002, I received my Ph.D in American History.  I did a post-doc year at George Mason and, since 2003, I have been an Assistant Professor at Emory University.

What was the greatest reward of being a part of the Mississippi Teacher Corps?

The biggest reward was to be in a position where you could get to know students and their families.  Working with students is an awesome responsibility and opportunity.  It was also a maturing experience.  I started teaching right after college.   You wake up one day and realize you are an adult.

What was the biggest challenge?

So many.  I think the biggest challenge was having to come in every day, five days a week, and maintain your energy level and focus.  It takes a tremendous amount of energy and concentration every day.  You have to be “on” every moment to ensure that you don’t have any dead time for the class to get out of control.

How has MTC impacted your life?

Being a participant in MTC made me realize that I wanted to remain in education.  My plan, initially, was to go to law school after the two years.  But being in MTC changed that.  I decided research some of the issues I encountered in the Delta.

Joe recently published a book titled In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution.  Amazon.com says: “In this ambitious reassessment of racial politics in the deep South, Joseph Crespino reveals how Mississippi leaders strategically accommodated themselves to the demands of civil-rights activists and the federal government seeking to end Jim Crow, and in so doing contributed to a vibrant conservative countermovement. Crespino explains how white Mississippians linked their fight to preserve Jim Crow with other conservative causes--with evangelical Christians worried about liberalism infecting their churches, with cold warriors concerned about the Communist threat, and with parents worried about where and with whom their children were schooled.”

You can read Joe’s 2005 Washington Post article “Rethinking the Confederacy” here.

(Joe Crespino, MTC Class of 1994)

The Mississippi Teacher Corps is the most competitive teaching program in the country. The two-year program, designed for non-education majors, recruits college graduates to teach in the Mississippi Delta and offers a host of benefits, including teacher training and certification, a full scholarship for a master's degree in education, job placement that includes full pay and benefits and, most importantly, the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students in one of the poorest areas of the country.