 MTC was founded by Amy Gutman and Andrew P. Mullins Jr. in 1989.Working with Dr. Mullins, then an employee for the State Department of Education, Gutman came up with the idea for the program, modeled after the Peace Corps.Gutman, a Harvard student doing a journalism internship in Greenwood, Mississippi, perceived that there were a lot of students who would be interested in coming to Mississippi to teach, provided they could get certified via the alternate route.