Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership (KFP)

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2025 THE YEAR OF THE LIGHTHOUSE

While the first cohort of Kenan Fellows officially convened in February of 2001, planning for this first group of teachers began in 2000. Therefore, KFP has marked 2025 as its 25th anniversary. Considering KFP’s history and the new national context, the KFP team recognized that the program has historically demonstrated – and in its 25th year would continue to be characterized by – an orientation towards stability and durability in turbulent times and an aspiration towards serving as a beacon of hope to North Carolina’s education community. Consequently, KFP adopted the image of a rooted, shining lighthouse as its focal symbol for 2025.

Drawing upon their aspirations for the 25th year of KFP, the team used the organization’s strategic plan to set their goals for the 2025-2026 cohorts of program participants. With an eye towards trumpeting KFP’s 25 years of success, ensuring long-term program values alignment, and establishing KFP as an integral component of NC’s education and STEM workforce development landscape, the following two goals were set forth:

  1. Establish a toolkit articulating KFP’s collaborative advantage, including brand values, tagline, elevator pitch, and supporting stories.
  2. Perform a comprehensive program audit to assess the focus of our professional development offerings and trusted partnerships, and, if necessary, realign our efforts to more effectively reflect our values and maximize our strengths.

Goal 1 Update: As of October 2025, the KFP team has finished compiling a document outlining KFP’s collaborative advantages, brand values, and peer program comparisons. Additionally, KFP has entered a collaboration with the creative brand agency Tigermoth Collective of Greensboro on the creation of a robust package of marketing and messaging materials to support KFP in better telling the story of its impact.

Goal 2 Update: As of October 2025, KFP has identified five organizational values that should guide all its work. The team has begun examining each of KFP’s initiatives in light of these five values. Following the programming analysis, the KFP team will begin iterating on each of its initiatives to ensure that they fully align with the organization’s core values.

2. THE SINGULAR NATURE OF KFP

Since 2013, KFP has maintained an annual evaluation contract with the Friday Institute for Education Innovation at NCSU (FI). Historically, these evaluations have included extensive survey work across the program’s offerings and interviews with program participants. The data collected from these evaluations have been instrumental in informing the shape and direction of KFP’s programming, but have never been considered through the lens of academic research. Upon entering his role as Director of KFP in July of 2022, Dr. Kite understood the 60+ Fellowship exit interview transcripts as a rich opportunity to make an evidence-based argument to the academic community about the unique nature of the Kenan Fellows Program. Dr. Kite has worked in conjunction with partners at the FI to conduct a comprehensive, qualitative analysis of the body of data. Their findings were then compiled in a conference paper that was accepted to and presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Education (NARST) in Washington, D.C., in March 2025. The conference paper is linked here. Through the summer of 2025, Dr. Kite worked to expand the conference paper into a full manuscript for submission to a top-tier academic journal. The final draft of the paper is currently being prepared for submission to the International Journal of STEM Education.

25TH ANNIVERSARY INITIATIVES

Understanding the significance of 25 years of service to the teachers, researchers, industries, and communities of North Carolina, KFP has initiated work on two major projects to both catalog and amplify the importance and impact of the organization’s efforts.

  1. 25th Anniversary Story Project: KFP has entered a yearlong contract with Malinda Faber of Upper Canopy Consulting to document KFP stories as told by former KFP Directors, founding members of KFP, industry partners, funders, and alumni. The intent of this project is to document the significant and impactful work of KFP across its history and to leverage the stories collected to amplify the importance of the work that KFP continues to do. As of October 2025, the team has conducted on-camera interviews with eight individuals who have been deeply connected to KFP across its history. The team will start disseminating video content from the interviews in Spring 2026.
  2. 25th Anniversary Conference: In August of 2026 (funding dependent), KFP will hold a conference in celebration of the first cohort of Fellows. This conference will showcase the best of the educational expertise housed in the network of 644 Fellowship alumni. The conference will be open to the broader educational community and will serve as a tangible demonstration of the types of professional development and orientation towards investment in teachers that set KFP apart.

 KENAN FELLOWSHIPS

2025-26 Cohort

In May 2025, KFP announced its newest cohort of 29 Fellows. Although KFP initially secured funding for and selected 35 Fellows, delays in the award of a federal grant from the Department of the Navy necessitated a reduction in the cohort size. These 29 Fellows hail from 24 North Carolina districts; one of the districts is new to KFP – Alexander county. Seventeen teachers serve in economically distressed (Tier 1 or Tier 2) counties. More than half of this cohort is from rural communities, and the majority teach in high school or middle school; ten teach at the elementary level or in K-12 schools. This new cohort of Fellows began their KFP experience with a virtual orientation on May 14th, 2025. They then spent a week in June receiving professional development at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) and three weeks during July and August in their industry immersion experiences. The Fellows visited Raleigh on October 16th and 17th for their Fall professional development institute.

The 2025-2026 Fellowships are being made possible through the generous support of KFP’s corporate, education, government, and foundation partners including: The BelleJar Foundation, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Deborah Mangum, Duke Energy, Duke University Marine Lab, Dogwood Health Trust, Fleet Readiness Center East, Goodnight Educational Foundation, Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology & Science, NC Afterschool Programs, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives and Lumbee River EMC, North Carolina Farm Bureau and Henderson County Farm Bureau, NC State Genetics and Genomics Academy, NC State EE Lab, Meta, NSF grants to Dr. Amy Maddox of UNC-Chapel Hill and Dr. Alexander Nevzorov of NCSU, and the Gorlin Family Foundation.

A complete list of the universities, industries, and foundations that provide support for KFP through funding and/or hosting/mentoring Fellows can be found at https://kenanfellows.org/partners/

2024-2025 Cohort End-of-Fellowship Impact Summary

In April of 2025, the 2024-2025 Kenan Fellows were provided the opportunity to report data on the impacts that they are having on the larger North Carolina education community. As of September 22, 2025, 35 of the 37 Fellows had responded to the survey. Impact highlights from that cohort follow:

  • 33,884 students served
  • 300+ Teachers served by district-level Fellows
  • 27 of the Fellows provided 335 hours of professional development to 2,178 other educators
  • 15 of the Fellows gave presentations to 778 non-educator education stakeholders
  • 12 of the Fellows gave 27 regional, state, and national conference presentations to 1,440 people
  • 15 of the educators had been awarded grants totaling $44,950
  • 11 of the educators had received accolades in addition to the Kenan Fellowships, including 6 school and district Teacher of the Year awards and the NC Teacher of the Year (Rachel Candaso)

2024-2025 Kenan Fellows Program Evaluation

The Friday Institute for Education Innovation (FI) provides annual program evaluation services for KFP’s various initiatives. KFP received its annual Fellowship evaluation memo in July of 2025; a copy of which can be accessed using this link.

Media Coverage

Educators from the 2024-2025 cohort, as well as KFP alumni, were featured in the following news articles.

Articles:

STEMwork SCHOLARS PILOT REVISIONS

The STEMwork program was initially developed to engage Kenan Fellows Program (KFP) alumni as facilitators for local teachers and to generate sustainable revenue to support KFP operations. The original model combined summer site visits to local industries with eight asynchronous online modules designed to guide teachers through the development and implementation of Project-Based Learning (PBL) units. While initial district adoption was strong from 2021 to 2023—supported by grants from the Dogwood Health Trust and the BelleJar Foundation—program attrition during the school year was high, as teachers reported feeling overwhelmed by post-pandemic demands. In response to these challenges, KFP redesigned the program for 2025–2026: the asynchronous modules were spun off into a standalone course offering, STEMwork Sprint, while the yearlong STEMwork program was restructured to emphasize summer site visits and two full-day, in-person PBL workshops. KFP alumni will continue to serve as facilitators and coaches for participating teams. In late spring of 2025, KFP received requests from two separate entities (The Durham Public Schools (DPS) Foundation and the Hawbridge School) for the design and facilitation of unique versions of the revised STEMwork program. The DPS Foundation requested a version for a team of DPS teachers that is focused on local industries, while the Hawbridge School requested a version focused on place-based learning and implementing PBL at the elementary level. Consequently, 30 teachers are currently participating in the pilot of STEMwork v2. Each team completed their PBL workshops in August of 2025 and will be participating in site visits across the school year. The DPS team will visit Cisco, the FREEDM Center, Glen Raven, Kempower, and Novonesis. The Hawbridge School will be participating in visits with Botanist and Barrel, Constructive Learning Design, the UNC Institute for the Environment, Project Learning Tree, and the NCSU Agroecology Farm.

MOUNTAINS TO SEA SCHOLARS PROGRAM PILOT REVISIONS

Since 2020, the Mountains to Sea Scholars program (MTS) has leveraged KFP’s statewide network of partnerships and alumni to create a semester-long experience for teachers that focuses on giving educators from a specific region of North Carolina a statewide perspective on a single topic. Historically, this program has focused on a cohort of educators from a single province of NC (i.e., Coast, Piedmont, Mountains). Thanks to funding from the NC SMT center, in the fall of 2025, KFP is seeking to deepen the impact of the program by bringing together educators from multiple regions of the state to investigate a single topic. Throughout the Fall of 2025, eight educators from western NC, eight educators from eastern NC, and two pre-service teachers from the NCSU College of Education participated in a series of in-person and virtual visits to learn about local impacts of and statewide variations in the effects of climate change and the attendant resiliency of local communities. In September, the eastern scholars participated in a day of coastal activities with the NC Coastal Federation and Hammocks Beach State Park. A portion of this experience was recorded for viewing by the Western NC scholars. In October, western scholars gathered in Asheville for a day of activities focused on the area’s recovery from Hurricane Helene. A portion of the activities was recorded for viewing by the eastern scholars. In November all scholars participated in a virtual event with the Duke University Marine Lab. The program culminated in December 2025 with all scholars convening in Raleigh for two days of work with experts from the NC State Climate Office, The Center for Public Engagement at UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State Climate Leaders Program, the State Resilience Office, and Constructive Learning Design.

NOT YOUR AVERAGE PD (NYAPD)

Not Your Average PD (NYAPD) exemplifies the Kenan Fellows Program’s (KFP) commitment to innovation, accessibility, and alumni leadership. Designed to leverage the instructional expertise of KFP alumni, NYAPD offers one-hour, live-streamed professional development (PD) sessions that are free and accessible to any educator with an internet connection. The program’s goals are to empower alumni as PD providers, highlight their expertise, and broaden KFP’s reach across North Carolina and beyond. After a highly successful pilot in Spring 2024, KFP enthusiastically launched a second installment in Spring 2025. Through a competitive selection process, three outstanding alumni were chosen to deliver sessions on teaching students to use AI ethically, project-based learning, and building student resilience. The Spring 2025 series reached 67 education professionals across 51 North Carolina counties and four additional states, representing a collective impact on approximately 1.7 million students annually. Moreover, the seven recorded NYAPD sessions on KFP’s YouTube channel have been viewed 951 times, extending the program’s impact even further. With a powerful return on investment and a growing network of engaged educators, NYAPD has quickly become a signature offering that KFP plans to build on in the years ahead.

JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHER LEADERSHIP (JOITL)

KFP has made the decision to pause the acceptance of articles for JoITL as the organization considers the alignment of the journal with current program resources, priorities, and aspirations. Further information about the status and future of the journal will be provided in the June 2026 KFP program summary.

NOTABLE KENAN FELLOWS ALUMNI ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2025

Awards

  • Alexandra Boyd is a 2025 North Carolina Finalist for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
  • Ann Kelly was named the 2024-25 Newport Middle School Teacher of the Year.
  • Carrie Jones, Ph.D., has been awarded the Outstanding Earth Science Teacher (OEST) Award for the state of North Carolina by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers.
  • Charise Thomas is a recipient of the CTE Prodigy Award for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
  • Christine Sudzina Schut has been awarded the inaugural Willis P. Whichard Honored Educator Scholarship, which is part of the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching’s Honored Educator Scholarship program.
  • Elijah Watson is the 2025 Charlotte Post Educator of the Year.
  • Keith Burgess, Ph.D., is a recipient of the 2025 AERA Middle Level Education Research Graduate Student of the Year award. Keith also had a media room named in his honor at his middle school within Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
  • KFP Received the Pelican Award for Cultivating Coastal Collaboration and Empowering Educators from the NC Coastal Federation
  • Rachel Candaso was selected as the 2024-2025 North Carolina Teacher of the Year.

Grants

  • Edwin Davis is a NC Bright Ideas grant recipient and presented at the 2025 Bright Ideas, Brighter Future Summit in Raleigh.
  • Garrick Purdie is a recipient of the Spring 2025 NC Farm Bureau Ag in the Classroom Going Local Grant.
  • Kimberly Mawhiney, director of STEM and Grants at Northeast Academy for Aerospace and Advanced Technologies, served as a lead grant writer on a $500,000 Golden Leaf Grant for a career center project for the school
  • Susan Miller-Hendrix served as the lead on a $180,000 Student STEM Enrichment Program grant awarded by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to the Public Schools of Robeson County

Publications

  • Brittany Argal published her paper A Participatory Science Initiative to Unravel Ancient Shark Ecology in the Journal of the Ecological Society of America
  • Paul Cancellieri published his second book on AI in the classroom: Fifty AI Prompts for Teachers

Other Outstanding Achievements

  • Anita Rubino-Thomas completed the NC Education Policy Fellowship Program through the Public School Forum.
  • Beverly Owens was selected as an Educator of Excellence and traveled to Mexico as part of the 2025 Mexico’s Magical Migrations Institute.
  • Brooke Sauer, Emily Ericson, and Jessica Odom have been selected to join the NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources for an exclusive professional development experience at Biscuits & Banjos.
  • Carrie Dobbins was featured on the C19TV Cleveland Community College station in an interview to discuss her fellowship and was selected as an NC Space Education Ambassador.
  • Christine Sudzina Schut and Shannon Hardy were also selected as Educators of Excellence and will travel to South Africa this summer.
  • Eric Eaton has been selected to serve as part of the Appalachian State University Teacher Innovation Cohort for 2025-26.
  • Keith Burgess and Phyllis King have been selected for the Inaugural NCBCE AI Fellows Cohort.
  • Kumar Sathy served as the emcee at the One Day Breakfast celebrating Teach for America North Carolina.
  • Margaret Borden graduated with a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from N.C. State University.
  • Mark Case received the 2025 National Energy Education Development (NEED) Distinguished Service Award.
  • Patricia Coldern has been selected to serve as the Executive Director of Human Resources for Lee County Schools.
  • Willow Alston-Socha presented her research on metacognitive accuracy through game-based learning environments at AERA.
  • Wyounda Horton has been selected for the CMS Teacher-Leader Pathway, an advanced career track for educators with a history of high student impact.

KENAN FELLOWS PROGRAM PRIORITIES AND NEEDS MOVING FORWARD

The most pressing need for KFP is a permanent, reliable source of annual funding to cover staff salaries. Currently, only a small portion of the KFP operating budget is secured through recurring state appropriations, requiring most of our staffing costs to be raised each year. This reliance on short-term or project-based funds limits the ability to plan strategically, grow sustainably, and maximize the impact of our programming. Further, the annual search for funding places KFP in a position of designing experiences that are responsive to the interests of funders rather than designing programs that best meet the identified needs of communities and educators across NC. Securing stable, recurring funding for staff would not only safeguard the expertise and continuity that drive the success of our organization, but it would also free the program to focus more fully on expanding opportunities for teachers and building innovations.

KFP will continue leveraging its portfolio of programming to establish a physical footprint in each of the state’s 100 counties and a virtual footprint nationwide. To date, KFP has served teachers in 81 counties and nine states and continues to engage with school districts, local and national industries, and other partners to build inroads into new geographic locales.