{"id":110562,"date":"2019-05-29T15:15:57","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T21:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=110562"},"modified":"2019-06-14T09:59:37","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T15:59:37","slug":"alumni-profile-enlightening-the-next-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=110562","title":{"rendered":"Alumni profile: Enlightening the next generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Marcus<\/a><\/p>\n

Medically discharged from the military, Marcus Pumphrey (\u201909, \u201918) felt a bit lost about what path to pursue next.<\/p>\n

\u201cI quickly knew the job direction I was headed involved no passion, so I enrolled at UCCS in 2005 to find it,\u201d he said, \u201cand I found exactly what I was looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

He earned two degrees in 2009, a bachelor of science in history and a bachelor of science in political science, both with honors. Marcus held several jobs, including in higher education, but after a while \u201cI just realized this is not what I want to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Marcus\u2019s mother, a retired elementary school teacher, had suggested he teach children. To explore the possibility, he met with Beth Cutter, a UCCS senior instructor in the College of Education and coordinator of the Alternative Licensure Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a great conversation about my goals and my ideals on education,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cIt was an awakening for me. I just left there like why I didn\u2019t do this 22 years ago, and I ask that question every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

He enrolled in ALP and joined Panorama Middle School in 2017 as a sixth-grade social studies teacher. The school is in the Colorado Springs neighborhood where he grew up. \u201cA lot of the kids I\u2019m teaching, I went to elementary school with their parents. It\u2019s pretty awesome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In 2018, he earned a master\u2019s degree in curriculum and instruction from UCCS. He was recognized that year as part of the Colorado Future Educator Honor Roll for demonstrating strong instructional skills, encouraging student engagement with relevant lessons, and for helping students understand their roles and responsibilities in a democracy. His colleagues referred to him as \u201ca role model of professionalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTeaching allows me to provide a point of view through a different lens,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cAs a minority male, I did not have any teachers who looked like me in all of my education, so this perspective is seminal.\u201d<\/p>\n

His goal is to become assistant principal or principal \u2014 with the help of UCCS, where he plans to complete the Principal Licensure Program in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medically discharged from the military, Marcus Pumphrey felt a bit lost about what path to pursue next. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":110563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,47],"tags":[53,61,107,82,86,87,192],"class_list":["post-110562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-education-and-public-affairs","tag-academic-affairs","tag-advancement","tag-alumni-relations","tag-college-of-education","tag-college-of-letters-arts-and-sciences","tag-department-of-history","tag-department-of-political-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/pumphrey-achieve.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-sLg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110571,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110562\/revisions\/110571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/110563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}