Blending Paths

I am curious to know if there is a better solution to blending paths than manipulating by hand for this example. I need to animate copy that follows a mask path to a new position with a new mask path. In this example, the layer "Scientists" falls down to the position of layer "Scientists2". I am figuring there is a quicker way to "blend these two paths overtime, but I am still a little wet behind the ears with After Effects and can't see a way other than manipulating the path of layer "Scientists" over time. Thanks so much for your help!

Thanks Johnny. I got that part. What I am trying to figure out is if there is a shortcut to animating the mask path from a curve to a straight line much like you could use the blend effect in illustrator to automatically put in the number of steps in between (although not absent of issues of its own). I have animated the mask path by hand and just copied and placed into each word or sentence that would use the masked path, but wondering if there is a quicker way if I end up using various masked paths that have different curves and so forth so I don't have to re-animate the path every time I need to change it. Just seeing if AE can animate the between frames for the masked path automatically. Forgive me if I am not explaining this well.