Alumni Highlight: Kristina Kilgallen

For the past two academic years, Kristina Kilgallen has brought the lessons learned in her New Century College undergraduate experience to the classroom where she teaches in rural Alabama. Having completed two years of service with Teach for America (TFA), Kilgallen uses hands-on learning to bring her lessons to life.

Originally from Northern Virginia, Kilgallen joined New Century College with the clear goal of becoming a science teacher. As an undergraduate, she was inspired by courses such as NCLC 320: The Construction of Differences: Race, Class and Gender and NCLC 375: Understanding the Sciences. Her undergraduate experience led her to apply to Teach for America, a non-profit organization which works to end educational inequality by placing recent college graduates with a passion to teach in underserved schools.

Kilgallen said, “It was the greatest decision I’ve made.”

Now, Kilgallen teaches biology, physical science, environmental science and botany at Hale County High School in Moundville, AL. Approximately 600 students attend the school, which places high importance on educational equality for all. Kilgallen notes that members of the racially-diverse student body have learned acceptance from an early age. Kilgallen said, “Our students get along well with one another—they have grown up together.”

In addition to teaching her science curriculum, Kilgallen encourages her students to explore their diversity and their cultural heritage while thinking critically about issues of race, class and identity. This upcoming fall, she will be working with a group of female students in a reading group to discuss issues of identity and will use materials she encountered in her first year NCC course NCLC 101: Narratives of Identity.

Through NCC, Kilgallen graduated with more than two semesters of classroom teaching experience along with a strong foundation in education theory and the core competencies required of all NCC students. These competencies include communication, critical thinking, group collaboration, global understanding, civic engagement, digital literacy, aesthetic awareness and well-being.

In fact, Kilgallen now incorporates many of these principles in her own teaching. She said, “I want a college-ready classroom, and incorporating the NCC competencies gets us there.”

When she is not teaching, Kilgallen is working toward a masters degree in education and attending a variety of professional development conferences and events to gain new ideas and insights for her next year of teaching.