Honoring Pamela Gwynn Herrup for Women’s History Month
This Women’s History Month, the Journey into Education and Teaching Program is proud to honor a woman who has done so much and championed a cause that will only benefit our multiple communities. We honor Pam Herrup, the co-founder of the Journey into Education and Teaching (JET) Program, as a woman of vision, strength and leadership. Think diversity, collaboration, commitment and you are thinking of Pam Herrup. Pam has a passion for working closely with families and adults in the public sector. Her goal is to see them succeed, especially in environments that are not quite yielding. It only makes sense that Pam would do what she does.
Pam’s career and commitment to the public sector spans many years. She has worked in public administration and education for over 40 years, starting in New York City government directing a public service internship program for college students and then becoming a public school teacher in elementary schools in Brooklyn. Upon moving to Massachusetts, she worked at the MA Department of Education in the Educator Preparation unit. She moved into higher education first as a grant manager for a large federal Teacher Quality grant for a statewide school-college partnership education consortium based at Boston College. She then joined the Center for University, School and Community Partnerships at UMass Dartmouth where she developed and co-authored several successful federal grant proposals. One such award was for Journey into Education and Teaching (JET), for which she became the Program Director. Once the federal grant ended, she sought ways to continue the unique and important work of JET.
In 2015, Pam co-founded JET as a program of the Massachusetts Foundation for Teaching and Learning. She guided JET to become an independent organization, with JET obtaining its non-profit incorporation status in 2021. The program’s goal is to mentor and support public school paraprofessionals, without bachelor’s degrees, to become the diverse classroom teachers needed in diverse school districts. The JET Program has grown from serving 9 scholars in 2016 in one school district to now serving over 140 scholars in nine school districts in 2022.
Pam is a member of the Educator Diversity Act Coalition whose mission is to develop, place and connect essential leaders of color in the education sector. The Coalition is made of a diverse statewide group representing educators, school district leaders, higher education institutions, teacher training institutions and education advocacy groups. Along with other Coalition members, Pam gave oral testimony to state legislators in support of the Educator Diversity Act (EDA). This has resulted in the possibility of the EDA being enacted into law this spring.
Pam continues to participate in statewide advocacy organizations promoting education equity and social justice in Massachusetts, which was a natural outgrowth of JET’s mission to mentor paraeducators without bachelor degrees in urban districts to become the diverse, committed teachers needed in their high-need schools. She has a B.A. in Government from Connecticut College and a M.A. in Counselor Education from New York University.
Pam is a true New Yorker but Massachusetts loves her best.