Our Scholar Spotlight is Mayura Iyer, who is finishing her Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree next year at the University of Virginia. This summer she is working for the District of Columbia Public School (DCPS) system.
What are your main responsibilities at your position? What are some of your big projects?
I work for the Office of Human Capital on the Teacher Retention and Recognition Team. I’m currently working on an initiative called First to Five, which is aimed at retaining DCPS teachers who have been in the district for 1-5 years. Anywhere between forty to fifty percent of teachers leave the profession in their first five years of teaching, especially in urban districts. This is an issue of serious concern as high teacher turnover is correlated with lower student achievement. Over the past few weeks, to learn more about this issue, we’ve conducted focus groups and collected survey responses. My project focuses on analyzing those results, as well as conducting interviews and best practices research to develop policy recommendations for DCPS to retain their teachers beyond five years.
How does this internship/scholarship fit with your professional and career goals?
I’m passionate about social justice and policy, particularly concerning race. In DC and urban districts in particular, race, education, poverty, and policy are inextricably connected. Working with DCPS will give me the tools I need to be an effective policy maker in the education sphere, while CAPAL will allow me to develop the skills I need to be a public servant and advocate within my community.
What do you hope to achieve this summer through your scholarship/internship experience?
I hope to learn more about how issues like race and gender influence the experience of students in urban districts, and how policies can be shaped to help students break through these barriers.
What does public service mean to you?
Public service, to me, is about engaging with the socioeconomic issues that prevent all citizens from having equal opportunities, as well as being an advocate for my community and other communities that may lack the privilege or platform to stand alone. As a member of the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, and as a minority woman, it is important for me to engage with the issues that affect all persons of color as well as women. A key part of this is being conscious of how the policies that we advocate for and that we support intersect with race, gender, sexuality, and class. Public service is about serving the public interest – however, it is important that the public interest isn’t defined solely by the majority, but that all voices are included.
What do you consider to be the most interesting thing about you?
I played piano at the Kennedy Center once, on Vladimir Horowitz’s piano! I also know all of the words to Baby Got Back.
What are you most excited to do in Washington DC this summer?
I grew up in the DC area, so I’m excited to try new restaurants and scope out the less tourist-y spots this summer.
Mayura Iyer is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Foreign Affairs, and has lived in the Northern Virginia area for most of her life. She will be returning to UVa in the fall to complete her final year of her Master of Public Policy degree through the Batten School of Leadership & Public Policy’s Accelerated BA/MPP program. She is a passionate social justice advocate, and is particularly interested in the intersection of race and gender with education and economic policies. As an agent for change in the AAPI community, she is concerned with the Model Minority myth, intersectional feminism, and mobilizing Asian Americans as a group for political advocacy and change. She has interned for several policy organizations, including the Peace Appeal Foundation, DC Public Schools, and Polaris, and has written for websites including Mic.com and Literally, Darling. After graduating with her MPP, she hopes to pursue a career that combines her passion for social justice with her love of writing and advocacy. In her free time, she can be found drinking coffee or binge-watching 30 Rock, Gilmore Girls, and Parks and Recreation.
Meet all of our 2015 CAPAL Scholars & Interns here
Posted by Taylor Huang-Boutelle
Taylor is an incoming Senior at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is double majoring in World Literature and Feminist Studies, with a concentration in Law, Politics, and Social Change. Taylor is in the D.C. cohort for the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (www.causeusa.org) and is currently a summer interns at the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership, where she is focusing on development and fundraising, and will be developing the blog content for this summer. Taylor is passionate about issues of representation, coalition between underserved communities, and creating spaces for strength and solidarity around injustices through community activism and public policy. taylor.boutelle [at] capal [dot] org