Volume 12, Number 3, 2004
The University's professional education programs, which encompass more than 2,100 undergraduate and graduate students in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy and four other colleges, have successfully completed a comprehensive review by the nation's pre-eminent accrediting organization.
A review team from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) gave the University an outstanding evaluation after visiting the campus in the fall. The seven educators who made up the team studied the overall organization of professional education and reviewed all the University's programs that educate prospective teachers, administrators and school psychologists. The process focused on how well the programs meet the council's standards.
"We were told by the chair of the team that he had participated in 18 NCATE reviews and had never seen such a positive report," CHEP Dean Tim Barnekov says. "The team cited no areas of our programs or unit as needing improvement, and indeed, there were no negatives reported at all."
Chris Clark, director of CHEP's School of Education, says most of the credit for the successful review "goes to our outstanding faculty and to the hundreds of schoolteachers who serve as mentors to our students.
"The faculty who teach future teachers are also doing award-winning research on teaching and school learning," Clark says. "The connections they make between research and practice are direct and immediate."
The School of Education comprises the largest number of professional education students at the University, with about 900 undergraduates enrolled in its Elementary Teacher Education program. NCATE also evaluated the Early Childhood Development and Education program in CHEP's Department of Individual and Family Studies, where about 160 undergraduates prepare to work with preschool and kindergarten children in school, family and institutional settings.
"The NCATE assessment confirms that the University of Delaware's teacher education programs are among the finest in the nation, meeting the highest standards of quality on all dimensions," Provost Dan Rich says. "Only about one-third of the institutions offering professional education programs in the nation are NCATE accredited, and only about 20 NCATE-approved institutions have achieved an assessment as strong as the University of Delaware's. All of the professional education faculty, staff and students should be very proud of this significant recognition of their accomplishments."
The review team initially supplied UD with a copy of its report and met with administrators to orally summarize its findings. The report and its recommendation to continue UD's accreditation for the next seven years became official in March, when NCATE's Unit Accreditation Board met to consider the recommendation.
"Overall, it was a smooth visit, and the team was impressed by the high level of cooperation," Frank Meyers, chair of the NCATE review team and dean emeritus at the University of Nevada at Reno, says.
Preparations for the review were overseen by Carol Vukelich, chair of the University Council on Teacher Education, which is responsible for organizing, coordinating and unifying the various UD teacher education programs.
Vukelich, who also is Hammonds Professor in Teacher Education and director of CHEP's Delaware Center for Teacher Education, says NCATE evaluates an institution's professional education unit in six broad areas, including the knowledge and skills that prospective teachers have acquired; the quality of students' field experience and clinical practice; and the qualifications, performance and development of UD faculty. In all areas, NCATE emphasizes performance-based standards.
"The reviewers looked at all the standards in great detail," Vukelich says. "They reviewed the materials we prepared for them and the supporting documentation, and they met with University students, faculty and administrators. They also talked to a lot of people in the community about our programs. It was a very comprehensive process."
Barnekov says the reviewers particularly commended the University's successful partnerships with the larger community and the quantity and quality of field experience for prospective teachers, beginning with hands-on work in schools as early as their freshman year.
"We are seeing quality teachers and quality student teachers come from the University of Delaware, and that's what I told NCATE when they came here," Todd Harvey, principal of Jennie Smith Elementary School in Newark, Del., says. "They are prepared for the challenges of today's schools."
Harvey, who was one of many local educators who met with the review team, says UD always collaborates and communicates with the schools to ensure that the placement is appropriate and benefits the local school as well as the student teacher.
Robert Andrzejewski, superintendent of the Red Clay Consolidated School District in northern Delaware, who also was interviewed by the NCATE team, says UD students work extensively in his district's schools, both in the classroom and in programs outside normal school hours. "The teacher training program at the University is providing high-quality teachers for our schools," he says.
Robert Smith, superintendent of the Milford School District, says he told the accreditation team about the Professional Development School, a partnership between his district and UD in which teacher-education students take classes and do extensive hands-on classroom work for two years at a Milford school.
"We talked about the strength of the partnership, how successful the Professional Development School has been and how well-prepared the students are when they graduate and get jobs," Smith says.
NCATE reviewed UD professional education programs that include more than 1,600 undergraduates and more than 500 graduate students in all areas except those pursuing a Ph.D. in education. In addition to the CHEP programs, the team evaluated secondary school teacher preparation in the College of Arts and Sciences, health and physical education in the College of Health and Nursing Sciences, agricultural and technology education in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics' master's degree program in economic education and entrepreneurship.
--Ann Manser, AS '73, CHEP '73