Rachel Talbert is the new Graduate Coordinator for Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Nashman Center. Rachel is a second year doctoral student in GSEHD, with interests in urban American Indians and civic identity, social studies education, school climate, urban education, and civic education.
Rachel comes to the Nashman Center with a love for GW and the field of Civic Engagement. Rachel attended the Elliott School as an undergraduate and served on the Colonial Cabinet and as an RA. Rachel also received her Master’s Degree from GW in Religion, with a concentration in Ethics and Early American Religion. After leaving GW, Rachel worked on Capitol Hill, in the Alexandria, Virginia Public Schools and taught English as a Second Language to adults. Most recently, Rachel served as Vice President of Curriculum and Programs at The Close Up Foundation, designing curriculum for programs fostering the political efficacy of high school and middle school students from around the world. She also led trainings and professional developments for teachers on how to best educate for democracy and worked closely with student programming for Native Americans, urban students and immigrant/migrant student populations.
This fall she will present at the Association of Moral Education conference in St. Louis Missouri on school climate and suspension rates and at the National Conference for the Social Studies in San Francisco on the civic identity of American Indian students.
Rachel's favorite service opportunity is work that she did (and still does) with Free Minds. Free Minds works with incarcerated youth and Rachel served as a pen pal in the past for student inmates and now participates in Write Nights. Ask her about her former students or the program any time. She has also served as a mentor to a student (now graduate) of DCPS for the last 12 years.
