Richard “Lennon” Audrain, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and Shawnee Tribe, is a research assistant professor at Arizona State University's Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (MLFTC). He leads the strategy on the Next Education Workforce initiative's Teacher & School Leader grant, an $8.2 million U.S. Department of Education grant awarded to ASU in partnership with Mesa Public Schools to redesign human capital management systems in education. Audrain also leads MLFTC’s Educators Rising Arizona, an initiative to convene and mobilize high schoolers, who are enrolled in Education Professions and Early Childhood Education programs across the state, in role- and work-based learning experiences in the education workforce.
In addition to his role as a research professor, Audrain teaches Education Professions, a career and technical education and grow-your-own program designed to generate and sustain high schoolers' interest in the teaching profession, at Skyline High School in Mesa Public Schools. Previously, Audrain taught Latin, Spanish, and English in both Arizona and Massachusetts.
Audrain earned his PhD in educational policy and evaluation from Arizona State University in May 2023--at age 23. He was the youngest graduate from both his Master's classes at Arizona State University and Harvard University. He earned his first Master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from Arizona State University at age 19 and his second Master’s degree in technology, innovation, and education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education at age 21.
To build the Next Education Workforce, Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College works with schools and other partners to 1) provide all students with deeper and personalized learning by building teams of educators with distributed expertise and 2) empower educators by developing better ways to enter the profession, specialize and advance. Nationally, teacher preparation programs have long seen declining enrollment, and this session will demonstrate how others, too, can meet this challenge.