From the Dean

In 2002, we celebrated the College of Education’s rich history as it turned 50 years old. We are now poised to begin our next 50 years, and this year has proven to be an incredible start on the journey to our centennial. In the past year, College of Education faculty members continued to receive national awards and recognition for their professional accomplishments and for their dedication and commitment to strong academic programs.

I wish I could enumerate all of their accomplishments in this column. We have had a banner year in grant awards beginning with the $5 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation as part of their national initiative called Teachers for a New Era. This award was the featured story in our Spring 2003 issue of the New Educator. This initiative is focused on building exemplary models of teacher preparation, and our work on this project is well underway. Teams of faculty bridging education and the disciplines are setting new standards for subject matter knowledge and addressing important issues such as induction, urban teaching, and assessment.

Teachers for a New Era, however, was only the beginning of our story for this banner year. Faculty also received more than $4 million in funding for two separate national centers: the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science, led by science education professors Jim Gallagher and Ed Smith, and the Center for Integration of Research, Teaching & Learning, headed by professors Jim Fairweather and Ann Austin, both in higher education administration. These centers are focused on advancing the quality of science and math teaching in k–12 schools and higher education, respectively. Some of our other major grant awards have included the study of math reform and assessment, preparing teachers to use technology in their teaching, examining the relationship between teacher qualifications and the quality of teaching practice, providing leadership for professional learning communities in schools, and developing induction programs for new teachers.
This fall, the college was awarded its largest single grant ever. The National Science Foundation selected the College of Education in collaboration with the College of Natural Science to share a $35 million award as part of its Math Science Partnership initiative (see Page 8). The partnership, which focuses on improving math and science achievement, also involves 70 school districts in Michigan and Ohio and will impact over 400,000 students. Co-principal investigators for the project are professors William Schmidt and Joan Ferrini-Mundy. This grant presents an exciting opportunity to improve math and science teaching and learning through research, policy, and outreach.

Our most recent award is $6 million from the Broad Foundation. This award supports a partnership between the College of Education and the Detroit Public Schools to recruit students from that district who want to become educators and then return to teach in the Detroit Public Schools. Over the course of this project, 750 students from the Detroit Public Schools will have an opportunity to participate in a pre-college summer program designed to introduce them to a career in teaching and to msu. The project is designed to provide more than 200 students with “full-ride” financial assistance as part of a loan forgiveness program. Students’ tuition, fees, room and board will be paid through loans that later will be forgiven if they return and teach in the Detroit Public Schools for four years. These teacher candidates also have the opportunity to complete a summer teaching fellowship in the Detroit Public Schools. Look for more about this exciting new project in the Spring 2004 issue of the New Educator.
 

Carole Ames
Dean, College of Education

The new grant awards total over $50 million to the College of Education. We hope you share our pride in the work of this faculty and college in research and outreach to schools.

We have a very prestigious faculty, but we are also very proud of our alumni. Their professional accomplishments and dedication bring distinction to our college and to msu. As you can see from the cover of this magazine, this past year three of our alumni were recognized as Teachers of the Year from their respective states: Susan Gutierrez in Michigan, Bob Grim in Illinois, and Eric Stemle in Wyoming. To have three graduates of our program selected as teachers of the year is quite a distinction for msu and speaks volumes about the quality of our programs over the years. I hope you will enjoy reading about each of the three outstanding educators and their experiences during the past year (see Page 16). We are proud of them and their excellence in the classroom.

Finally, our ability to attract the very best students depends on our ability to provide the kind of financial assistance that will enable these students to attend msu. Consequently, it is very important to us that our scholarship endowments continue to grow. This past year our endowment fund grew by 17 percent and the value of endowments created through deferred gifts grew by a healthy 63 percent. Our current scholarship endowment is $4.5 million; and with deferred gifts, our endowment is now more than $19 million. We continue to believe that with scholarships and fellowships, we are investing in individuals who will, through their own careers, make a difference in the lives of others. On Page 29, we include our annual list of donors. We appreciate the generous contributions of our alumni and friends.

I hope you enjoy this issue of the New Educator. We are pleased to share with you some of our initiatives and accomplishments. As our alum or friend, you help make these accomplishments possible. Thank you for your continuing support of our endeavors.

Carole Ames, Dean