The College of Education envisions a world where educators serve as inclusive collaborators and agents of change toward a just society. We work toward a world in which the histories and strengths of individuals and their communities are valued, respected, and integrated into the education of all.
The mission of the College of Education is to provide accessible, meaningful, and expansive professional preparation that enables educators to create conditions for individuals to reach their full potentials and for schools and communities to thrive.
As faculty and staff members in the College of Education, these Shared Commitments represent our histories as well as our opportunities to learn and grow in our beliefs and practices. We understand we make mistakes and engage imperfectly in this work. By learning from and with one another and with diverse communities, we use our strengths alongside these mistakes and imperfections to stoke our professional curiosities, provide provocations for improvement, and ensure that we avoid complacency in our work and in our world.
● Pursue a Just and Equitable Society. We aspire to embody and enact anti-racist and identity-affirming teaching, scholarship, and professional practices. This means providing maximum access and opportunities to notice, name, and interrogate our own practices and those of others. We commit to dismantling systems and policies which have historically been used to marginalize and which persist in denying full educational access to all learners. Simultaneously, we uphold, strengthen, and create systems and policies that promote just and inclusive practices.
● Learn from, Contribute to, and Apply Theory and Research. We work to integrate theory and research to inform, interrogate, and renew our professional practices. We are intentional and transparent in engaging with research to assess what is working within our practices while also challenging who we are and changing our practices to interrupt inequitable systems for all learners. Using the research we create and seek, we confront what is difficult in our individual and collective work to transform ourselves and impact communities.
● Embody Inclusive and Responsive Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring. We demonstrate transparency in the ongoing and intentional development of our professional identities through self-examination and self-transformation. We are engaged and active contributors to our professional practice through collaboration and solution-focused advocacy. We commit to keeping our teaching practices relevant and engaging for all students across all identities. Our teaching and mentoring must reflect what we hope to see revealed in our students’ professional practices.