Devin Terrell graduated from Christopher Newport University with a major in History in May, 2006. While in school, he participated in a number of activities related to the teaching field, including serving as an officer of the school's chapter of the Student Virginia Education Association and after-school tutoring at a Newport News high school. He became an AATF Fellow to fulfill licensure requirements in education courses and student teaching at Mary Baldwin College. He was hired to teach government courses at Charlottesville High School in Fall 2007.

"I believe that the AATF program is highly successful in the way it provides students with positive role models during their educational process. Seeing people who look like them allows our black students to realize the value of education and the positive lifestyle and appearance they may earn from working hard on their academics. Along with this, students of other races are exposed to positive images of Black Americans when they too have them as teachers. This allows special mentor-student bonds to develop between people of different races at an early age to help combat the negative images cast upon black people by the often wrongly portrayed pictures of successful Black Americans as thugs through the popular media."