Welcome from the Dean
In the introduction to their book, Teachers Caught in the Action, Ann Lieberman and Lynne Miller, describe their 20 year partnership working with schools and university colleagues “to describe and inform what happens when teachers work together over time to deepen their knowledge, improve their craft, and transform schooling for their students and for themselves.” In the College of Education at USF St. Petersburg, we are also dedicated to preparing teachers and education professionals who can make a difference in their students’ learning and in their own lives as education professionals.
In nature, as well as in education, strong partners are critical. In his essay, On the Uncertainty of Science, physician and essayist, Lewis Thomas describes the importance of partnerships in nature for viability.
The urge to form partnerships, to link up in collaborative arrangements, is perhaps the oldest, strongest, and most fundamental force in nature. There are no solitary, free-living creatures: every form of life is dependent on other forms. The great successes in evolution…have done so by fitting in with and sustaining the rest of life. Up to now we might be counted among the brilliant successes, but flashy and perhaps unstable. We should go warily into the future, looking for ways to be more useful, listening more carefully for the signal, watching our step, and having an eye out for partners. (Thomas, 1980, p. 19) |
In our College of Education, we have worked with our school-based educational partners to develop our own unique mission, vision, and goals for the next five years. We have begun the five-year journey to seek separate national accreditation by the National Council for the Accreditation of Colleges of Teacher Education, while we remain fully accredited as an institution in the USF system of institutions. In October of 2006, our application for accreditation, the Preconditions Report, was accepted. We are now official candidates for accreditation and preparing for our site visit in February of 2008. An important step in this national accreditation process has been the development of our Candidate Learning Outcomes.
The College of Education faculty, in conjunction with our school-based educational partners, have defined what we want all of our degree candidates to know and be able to do. We have also spent the last three years creating a college-wide assessment system, the Collaborative Digital Network. This standards-based electronic portfolio system helps our candidates’ monitor their progress through each of their educational programs, requiring them to submit evidence that what they have learned impacts K-12 student learning.
We invite each of you to join us as critical partners in achieving this shared goal of transforming schooling. We offer excellent undergraduate and graduate programs, and our knowledgeable and skilled faculty are waiting to welcome you personally.
Sincerely,
Vivian Fueyo, PhD.
Professor and Founding Dean
College of Education
Lieberman, A. & Miller, L. (2001). Teachers Caught in the Action: Professional Development that Matters. NY: Teachers College Press, p. vii.
Thomas, L. (1980, September/October). On the uncertainty of science. Harvard Magazine,19-22.
