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Connecting Coursework to Life, Putting Faces to Books and Ideas

The daughter of two DuPont engineers, Lindsay Romano grew up in Wilmington and attended the University of Delaware. Graduating with a major in international relations and a double minor in Spanish and Latin American studies, she came to New York as a Teach for America corps member at Democracy Prep in Harlem. She taught the school’s special-education students, assisted in algebra and civics classes, served as a college advisor, and provided special help to immigrant children learning English.

To earn her master’s, Romano enrolled at the Hunter School of Education, an official partner of TFA. She graduated last year with the Mary M. Solomon Award for Outstanding Achievement – achievement she credits largely to guidance from faculty like Virginia Gryta (MSEd’10), who took great care in evaluating Romano’s lesson plans and “made me a better teacher in general.” In applying for the Fulbright, Romano says, she received invaluable support from Myrna Fader, Hunter’s longtime grant and scholarship advisor, and  Diana Conchado, an associate professor of Spanish.

During her year in Bogotá, Romano will teach at Universidad Antonio Narino (named after a leader in Colombia’s early 19th-century fight for independence from Spain). She has already taken several classes in Colombian history and literature, and says she looks forward to “bringing life to my coursework on Colombian culture, and seeing how the people have been shaped by all they’ve been through.” She adds, “I want to just meet, talk to and get to know people. I’ve never lived abroad for a year, and I want to put more faces to the books I’ve been reading, the ideas I’ve been forming.”

When she returns to New York, Romano will continue to teach young English-language learners and eventually build a career in educational policy or administration. “I’m passionate about improving the ways we serve these students,” she says. “We need to serve each child individually, with a curriculum that is not ‘one size fits all’ and a more creative approach to making the learning environment welcoming and accessible.”

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