Preservice Secretary

Bianca Nicolescu is a rising junior at The College of New Jersey, studying Secondary Mathematics Education as well as Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She enjoys exploring the intersectionality of gender, race, culture, class, and sexuality in our society and education system.

After she attains her master’s degree, Bianca aspires to teach high school math, where she hopes to foster her students’ love for mathematics and show them how the content they learn in school, no matter how complex, is applicable and relevant to their daily lives. She also strives to pursue a doctoral degree program in hopes of becoming a college professor and teaching the next generation of aspiring educators.

She served as the Diversity and Justice Co-Chair for the NJEA Preservice state leadership team last year. This position allowed her to work alongside an inspiring group of individuals, especially through her participation in the Human and Civil Rights Committee and the Minority Leadership and Recruitment Committee. As an ally for underrepresented teachers, she is a strong advocate for the retention of minority educators and having more diverse teacher representation in schools.

Bianca was also a member of the National Education Association Aspiring Educators (AE) Advisory Committee this past year. She helped create policies that bridge the gap between AE and Early Career members, and plan professional development workshops for the AE Conference.

Now setting into the role of Secretary for NJEA Preservice, Bianca is excited to lead initiatives that increase active members’ engagement, support BIPOC educators, and encourage more Preservice members to write articles for the Review magazine. She looks forward to contributing her optimistic, open-minded, and activist personality to help implement positive change.

Bianca has also had the privilege of attending the NEA Aspiring Educators Conference (AEC) in 2022, where she enjoyed forming a community with aspiring educators from around the country and learning from professional development workshops. She is excited to get to participate in AEC once again this summer. Bianca has also served as a camp counselor for TCNJ’s CFE Future Educator Academy. She feels grateful to have worked with high school students to help them develop their values as a future educator and learn how to be an advocate for social justice initiatives in the classroom.

Aside from her role through NJEA Preservice, Bianca is always delighted to spend her free time tutoring kids. She enjoys crafting her own lesson plans and practice problems, thus making math easier to understand and more relevant to her students’ lives. In her own future classroom, Bianca aspires to teach math through the lens of social justice by taking a non-traditional approach to math pedagogy. She strongly believes that math should be used as a medium through which educators can teach about social issues and promote culturally responsive curriculum. In addition to tutoring, Bianca enjoys playing solo piano as well as the double bass in the orchestra. Music is a large part of Bianca’s identity; with every piece that she prepares, Bianca truly loves to transform classical music pieces into an interesting musical narrative. She strives to continue her piano and double bass studies beyond college and further use music as a way to connect with her community.