INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A national nonprofit and a central Indiana university are teaming up to combat the teacher shortage through a partnership.

It’s the second year Teach for America partners with the University of Indianapolis. The second cohort of members started the program in June.

Through the partnership, corps members will receive a teaching license and potentially a master’s degree from UIndy.

Those enrolled do this while also teaching kids in the classroom.

First-year member Kirsten Lockwood is already in the classroom with the kids weeks after starting. The program is helping out at a summer learning lab at Believe Circle City High School.

Lockwood says she hopes to become an English teacher.

“This is my real first experience teaching,” Lockwood said. “There’s still so much I don’t know about, like the technical side of teaching. So, just to be continuing to learn that while also sharing my passion with others. It’s just, it’s a really cool parallel.”

Both groups view the first year of the program as a success and want the partnership to grow.

John Kuykendall, dean of the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, says they want to inspire the next generation of teachers.

“It gives a learning opportunity to learn in different modalities,” Kuykendall said. “So that they can appreciate the learning experience, develop themselves, and go out and be effective teachers.”

Teach for America helps the corps with a teaching coach and career and financial support.

Meanwhile, the university provides additional instruction and a teaching coach to the corp members.

Darius Sawyers with TFA says the program is all about accessibility.

“We’re just really excited to just remove as many barriers as possible,” Sawyers said. “We need great people who really care about kids to really go impact kids — today.”

Second-year member Jayden Bolden didn’t know he wanted to be a teacher until it was too late in his college journey. Many in the program share a similar struggle.

He says the process makes him excited to keep learning.

“I want to be the teacher that I feel like I needed when I was growing up,” Bolden said. “When you have that kid-centric ‘why?’ It just makes it pretty easy to battle through some of the difficulties “

The program takes 18 months for corp members to finish.