About the College of Education
 

Significant Accomplishments Of the
College of Education 1996-2008

As the largest supplier of educators in the state during the period 1996-2008, the College of Education at UM-St. Louis educates a major portion of teachers, principals, and counselors for Missouri's largest metropolitan area and chief economic region. The St. Louis metropolitan area supports about one-third of the teachers, and one-third of the students in Missouri. The UM-St. Louis College of Education is a leader in providing innovative, creative education programs. Founded in 1965, the College is positioned with partnerships throughout the region to provide World Class programming for tomorrow’s education professionals and leaders – dedicated individuals who will greatly influence the lives of our children and our future.

With nearly 20,000 College of Education alumni -- most of whom stay in the St. Louis area -- our graduates have touched the life of virtually every child in the region. The College of Education is committed to offering students a myriad of faculty-sponsored research opportunities that enhance understanding of child development and the teaching and learning process.

Fully accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the College is positioned with partnerships throughout the region to provide World Class programming for tomorrow’s education professionals and leaders. These are the people who will greatly influence the lives of our children and, as such, our region’s future.

The College has:

• 21 undergraduate, graduate & doctoral programs
• 150+ full-time and part-time faculty
• 2,200 undergraduate, graduate & doctoral students
• 200+ post-baccalaureate certification students
  
• 20,000+ alumni

The College is the largest preparer of certificated educators in the State of Missouri according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

There are 564 first- and second-year teachers who are graduates of UM-St. Louis employed in the State of Missouri this year (2007-08) according to DESE. Here is where they are:

St. Louis County = 221
St. Louis City = 133
Charter Schools = 38 (City of St. Louis)
St. Charles County = 60
Other Missouri School Districts = 112
Total = 564

Eighty percent of our first and second year graduates are employed in St. Louis City and County, and St. Charles County.

Implemented Strategic Planning Process

• In 1996, the College of Education engaged faculty, staff and community partners from St. Louis area schools, cultural institutions, and businesses to develop a strategic plan for the College’s future. With many university and community partners – the college successfully implemented the Plan for the Future called “Creating the 21st Century College of Education” (Futures I). The plan was reviewed seven years later, and the Futures II strategic plan was completed and unanimously adopted by the faculty in 2004. It is entitled “Educators for the Future: Diversity, Community, Excellence” and is currently being implemented.
   
• In 2008, the College established the Robert M. Frank Lecture on the Future of Learning. Dr. Dwight Allen was the inaugural guest lecturer in spring 2008, and served to kick off the College’s Futures III strategic planning process among faculty and guests from the St. Louis area education community.
   
• The College of Education at UM-St. Louis is known for its innovative University-school-corporate partnerships and extensive graduate programs. Through the collaborative strategic planning process, the College developed a vision for the future. The College has undergone dramatic change by reaching out to many and varied community partners.
   
• The College of Education developed a responsive, field-based, collaborative approach to preparing new, and continuing the knowledge of practicing professional educators. Our model is based on the philosophy that education counselors, teachers, students, parents, schools, universities, community resources such as the corporate and business community, cultural institutions, youth service organizations and other health and welfare organizations -- all must join in "raising" our most precious resource -- our children.

Reorganized, Renamed College

• We reorganized and renamed the School of Education the College of Education with four divisions to better serve our student community and reflect the depth and breadth of our areas of study. The divisions are: Teaching and Learning, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Counseling and Family Therapy, and Educational Psychology, Research, and Evaluation.
   
• The Faculty of the College of Education discussed, deliberated and collectively identified major areas of knowledge that support our research, teaching, and community partnerships. In 2002, faculty unanimously adopted the “Knowledge Base Statement and Conceptual Framework.” Our shared and collective knowledge serves as a foundation for the specialized knowledge in education for each of the College’s four Divisions that educate administrators, counselors, teachers, specialists and researchers. The Knowledge Base Statement was reviewed, modified, and re-adopted in April, 2008.

Significantly Increased Faculty Diversity

• The College’s strong commitment to diversify our faculty and to promote women and minorities to leadership positions has resulted in more than doubling (from 6 to 15) our full-time minority faculty (including 12 new full time African-American faculty), the hiring of 35 female faculty, appointing a second female associate dean, two female chairs, one female advancement officer, a female African-American pre-collegiate program director, an African-American Director of the Center for Human Origin and Cultural Diversity, and an African-American Endowed Professor of Urban Education.

Faculty Leadership in Research

• In addition to numerous awards and honors in 2007, many COE faculty served as editors or editorial board members for a number of professional journals including: The Career Development Quarterly; The Family Journal; Journal of Black Psychology; Journal of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues in Counseling; Journal of Individual Psychology; Psychology of Women Quarterly; Sex Roles; Adult Learning; Midwest Educational Researcher; International Journal for Training and Development and Human Resource Development Quarterly; Missouri Journal for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; Journal of Education Research; and Education and Urban Society.

Unprecedented Number of Endowed Professorships

• In the past decade, the College has garnered all or part of twelve endowed professorships, bringing the total number of endowed professors to 14. These important professorships have provided the College with the foundation to become a world leader in educator preparation.
  
  
  • No other educator preparation program in a public university in the United States has as many as 14 endowed professors holding rank and specializing in various aspects of children’s education, including science education, character education, art education, urban education, and educating children with disabilities.
  • • Each professorship has formalized connections with the region's public cultural and science learning institutions, youth service organizations, and organizations serving disabled children. Representing a tremendous wealth of knowledge, these national leaders in their respective fields of study are committed to providing research, teaching and outreach programs to the St. Louis community.

Leadership in Technology Enhanced Teaching and Learning

• The E. Desmond Lee Technology and Learning Center in the College of Education was completed in April 2000 and since that time has attracted nearly 400,000 visits! The Center received high acclaim from the Great City Universities' 2000 national meeting in Denver, and won the Xerox Corporation Award for Innovation and Imagination. Unique in the region, the TLC is devoted solely to the needs of teaching professionals by providing education students and practicing educators with skills and understanding to effectively use technology in classrooms for increased student learning.
   
  • In February 2006, the University of Missouri-St. Louis College of Education won the Best Practice Award for the Innovative Use of Technology from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). AACTE is the premier teacher education association in the United States.

National Accreditation for Quality Education

• Continuously striving to provide students with the highest quality education, the College has maintained full accreditation - receiving full continuing accreditation in 2005 through the year 2010 by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MDESE). Our Counseling and Family Therapy program is fully accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Education Programs (CACREP).
   
• In 2007-2008, the Division of Counseling and Family Therapy expanded its national accreditation with the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs to cover doctoral programs. UM-St. Louis is one of only two accredited programs in the state and one of nine programs nationally to hold the career counseling accreditation.
   
  
• The College maintains membership in the following national and statewide organizations: Holmes Partnership, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, Council of Academic Deans in Research Education Institutions (Land Grant), Urban Education Consortium, Great Cities’ Universities Colleges of Education, University Council for Educational Administration, and the Missouri Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
   
• Begun in 2007, the Systemic Partnerships to Increase College and Access is an urgent and wide-reaching project to address an important issue in urban communities-increasing the rate of graduation from high schools and increasing enrollment in post-secondary education. The College of Education is a member of this consortium of urban universities nation-wide committed to this effort to provide leadership in addressing many of the issues-within schools and outside schools-that contribute towards the drop-out rate.

New Degree Programs

• The COE has grown over the past decade to serve a diverse community of educators. We developed and received approval by the Coordinating Board for Higher Education for four new degrees: 
   
  • PhD in Education Degree
  • Educational Specialist Degree (EdS)
  • Bachelor of Educational Studies Degree (BES)
    
    We have implemented the BES and EdS degrees and the new PhD degree has resulted in significant increases in doctoral degree enrollments in the College of Education, with nearly 200 enrolled every semester. 
     
• 2006-07 was the first full year of the new Educational Specialist Degree Program in School Psychology and enrollment is higher than expected
   
• A cooperative Ph.D. program between the College of Optometry and a College of Education with a focus area of Learning Related Vision Problems is an outgrowth of the community outreach Pupil Project. This program was begun in 2007 with six initial doctoral students. It is the only program in the U.S. that is jointly sponsored between a College of Optometry and a College of Education.

External Funding and Private Giving Approaches $70 Million

• Private giving to the College over the years has exceeded $10 million. The many grants, gifts and contracts helps the College extend its resources and expertise to directly reach thousands of K-12 students and educators in the St. Louis region and the state with programs to increase student achievement and provide lifelong learning opportunities for teachers. A donor brochure recognizing all COE gift donors for the previous three years is printed periodically.
   
• The College has received over $1 million in corporate gifts for Math, Science Initiatives in 2007, supporting pre-collegiate programs such as Bridge, STARS, GEAR-UP, STEP, and capital funding to help create Science & Mathematics Central, a state-of-the-art science and mathematics teaching lab.
   
• We have experienced an unprecedented increase in annual external funding in the College of Education for the period FY1996-FY2008 with total funding commitments exceeding $70 million. External funding for FY2007 and FY2008 totaled nearly $10 million in and represents the largest annual funding amounts in the College’s history.
   
• The COE was selected by the MO Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to evaluate the state’s Reading First program under No Child Left Behind for the entire state of Missouri. This represents nearly $3 million in State funding over six years.
   
• In 2005, the College of Education and St. Louis Community College launched a $60 million initiative to increase high school graduation and college enrollment rates in eight St. Louis-area school districts. Nearly half of the funding for GEAR-UP St. Louis is provided by a six-year, $28 million grant secured by College of Education from the U.S. Department of Education. It is the largest single federal grant received by UMSL in its 42-year history, and the largest grant EVER received by an education program in the State of Missouri.
   
• The $3.2 million Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant received in 2005 is three-year federal grant that strengthens the university's partnership with St. Louis Public Schools. The program supports UMSL's field-based teacher preparation programs, including a new year-long internships and student teaching that provide college students with extensive, diverse classroom experience.
   
• Science Co-op was a 5-year, $3.7 million program (ended in 2007) that provided professional development in elementary science education to 200 teachers in 11 rural school districts in Missouri.
   
• The “Just Ask” project, a $2.6 million NSF-funded program began in 2008 and serves 120 K-6 teachers from five rural districts in Missouri over five years. The program will develop an online community of practice focused on teachers helping teachers find ways to use science inquiry to improve student performance in the high demand areas of reading, writing and math as well as in science. After it is developed, the “Just Ask” website will have the potential to impact teacher and student performance in any setting, but especially teachers in small and/or isolated school districts.
   
• The College of Education received a $135,000 grant (2008) from the Parsons Blewett foundation to provide reading certification tuition for 30 teachers in St. Louis Public Schools.

Redesigned Undergraduate Teacher Education Program

• The undergraduate teacher education program has been completely redesigned. In the redesigned program education students immediately begin working in school settings with experienced teachers in their earliest Level 1 exploratory courses. Field experiences, internships and student teaching are linked developmentally throughout the program as students interact with pupils and teachers in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Technology is infused in the program as preservice students work in classrooms, in the Technology and Learning Center and in school sites to learn and share the most current strategies and techniques in a hands-on, interactive environment.
   
• We offer the only comprehensive, year-long, university-sponsored Beginning Teachers Assistance program in the St. Louis area. The program benefits first and second year classroom teachers 
   
• The COE has strengthened relationships with St. Louis area community colleges to improve the level of articulation for transfer students to UM-St. Louis who are majoring in teacher education.

Redesigned Masters Degree Teacher Education Program

• The college redesigned the Master’s programs in Elementary Education, Secondary Education and Special Education. These new programs for practicing teachers focus on the challenges and tasks that today’s educators face, and include material designed to help teachers meet the expectations of today’s communities.
   
• In 2005, UMSL entered into an historic agreement with Harris-Stowe State University enabling four UMSL College of Education graduate-level courses to be taught at Harris-Stowe. Credits earned can be applied toward a Master of Education degree at UMSL.

Increased Community Partnerships and Service

• A hallmark of our College is our commitment to partnering with the community. We have created an unprecedented number of partnerships and community collaboration with nearly 200 schools and school districts, particularly the St. Louis Public Schools, the 12 community college districts in Missouri, and St. Louis community institutions like the Science Center, Art Museum, Symphony, Opera Theatre, Youth Organizations and Variety the Children’s Charity of St. Louis, service providers to children with disabilities. Because of our many rich and diverse partnerships, opportunities abound for students to develop professional connections in their own communities, and beyond. By reaching out to the vast array of educational and community resources in our area, we create valuable connections with education leaders, expert practitioners and master teachers in districts across the region -- each presenting a variety of strengths and challenges from which to learn.
   
• Recognizing that the moral development and character education of children is of profound importance in their becoming productive and contributing citizens in a democracy, the College of Education, through the generosity of Sanford N. McDonnell, created an important endowed professorship in Character Education. We have now assembled a strong cadre of committed faculty with national/international reputations and with a commitment to citizenship and character education. In 2005 the Provost and Chancellor approved the creation of the Center for Character and Citizenship in the College of Education.
   
• The Center for Character and Citizenship began a Leadership Academy in Character Education in the St. Louis Public Schools (2007), at the request of its leadership. A first cohort of 30 administrators began their year-long program in January. Funding was secured from Anheuser-Busch, Emerson Electric, Sam Fox, SLPS, and the Gear-Up grant. Numerous programs are offered through the center, including Kids Voting (has served over 800,000 students in St. Louis and across Missouri) and Youth Empowerment in Action. The center attracts scholars and graduate students from around the world (Canada, Germany, China, Korea) and as visiting scholars (Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Taiwan), and edits the only research journal in character education.
   
• Three additional Centers in the College of Education were approved in 2005 by the Chancellor: the Center for Excellence in Urban Education, Center for International Community College Education and Leadership, and Center for the Study of Disability, Education, and Culture.
   
• In 2003 The UM-St. Louis science education and science faculty joined forces with the Emerson Electric Co. Endowed Professor of Technology and Learning, and other science and math colleagues to form the Institute for Mathematics & Science Education and Learning Technologies (IMSELT). The Institute addresses critical education issues in mathematics, science, and technology at local through international levels and collaborates on projects and research specifically to advance the teaching and learning of science, mathematics and instructional technologies.
   
• Faculty in the COE developed, implemented and published a yearlong study, "St. Louis Voices for Children with Differing Abilities," illustrating the needs of children with disabilities and their families in the St. Louis area.
   
• The COE, through partnership between our Regional Center for Education and Work and the world renowned Gallup Organization, set in motion a process to measure the quality of life in the St. Louis region as reported by its citizens. The St. Louis region was the nation’s first to be assessed using Gallup’s Quality of Community Life survey. The survey results create a benchmark for the St. Louis community. Individuals working in concert have been organized to build on the results towards a positive future.
   
• Matched by $32 million in community commitments, the $28 million St. Louis In Gear for Success GEAR-UP grant (U.S. Dept. of Education) supports a community-wide partnership representing the region’s largest collaborative effort ever (over 40 entities in all) to marshal resources from higher education, school districts, state agencies, businesses, and community and faith-based organizations with a singular focus on college readiness for low-income students in eight school districts.
   
• The Urban Achievement Alliance (UAA) engaged public and private school teachers and administrators in reflective practice around common urban education problems. The project used education technologies to document, share and promote innovative and effective educational practices, and to identify and overcome barriers to achieving those practices in the City of St. Louis.
   
• The COE expanded internships and student teaching assignments to more than 20 school districts throughout the metro-area – representing over 120 schools, including 28 schools in the St. Louis Public School District.
   
• The COE partnered with the St. Louis Public Schools on their new "School of the Future" initiative in 2006-2007 at the Carnahan School in the City of St. Louis.
   
• The School and Family Counseling Center opened in Fall 2007. The Center is an addition to the graduate practicum experience in the counseling program. It provides training for graduate, school and counseling practicum students in the Master’s and Doctoral counseling programs through development of community outreach programs. Other services provided by the Center will include counseling research, clinical counseling services such as individual, couple, and group counseling by Center interns and faculty members, supervision for licensure of new counseling graduates, and counseling educational programs for the community and counseling professionals.
   
• The Division of Counseling and Family Therapy in the College of Education developed cooperative programs with four St. Louis metropolitan region public schools:  St. Louis Public Schools, Normandy Public Schools, Rockwood Public Schools, and Kirkwood Public Schools.  These programs, coordinated through our School and Family Counseling Center (our training center established in 2007) provide counseling services to students and their parents in these school districts. Called the Counseling for Positive Change Program in the St. Louis Public Schools, this program is a partnership with their Safe and Drug Free Schools program.
   
• The Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies partnered with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to conduct the evaluation of the state’s implementation of the No Child Left Behind program, Reading First.
• The E. Desmond Lee Regional Institute for Tutorial Education (RITE) is a Collaborative Institute for six universities and ten United Way funded youth agencies, plus St. Louis Public Schools and Normandy Schools in the St. Louis area. We work in all agencies using the resources of the various universities. RITE conducts the following programs in the St. Louis community and in the St. Louis Public Schools:
   
  • Literacy training and on-site facilitation for 40 AmeriCorps Members who tutor in the most at-risk St. Louis Public Schools (since 2003).
  • Co Grantee with AVID (begun 2005)., university tutors of middle school St. Louis Public School students who might be able to go to college
  • Provide mathematics and literacy training for Better World after-school providers (begun 2006).
  • Partner with three 21st Century grants with St. Louis Public School District.
  • Provide after-school program weekly for Girls Inc (begun 1999).
     
• Begun in 2002, the Pupil Project brings together the resources and expertise of the UM-St. Louis College of Education and College of Optometry faculty to manage learning related vision problems. A team of optometrists, school psychologists, special educators and physical therapists provide optometric, psychological and educational clinical evaluation, diagnosis and remediation for children with learning related vision problems.
   
  
• The College provides numerous Resources as outreach to the community, including the following:
  
  Center for Human Origin and Cultural Diversity, Richard Burnett Reading Clinic, Technology and Learning Center, St Louis Teacher Enhancement Program, Career Transition Certification Program, St. Louis Gear Up, Positive Behavior Support consultant, Child Care Access Means Parents in School, The Family Literacy Project, AT&T Electronic Portfolios, Missouri Science Teaching and Education Partnership (MO-STEP), Science Inquiry through inquiry Learning and Literacy, Advancing science performance with emerging computer technologies (ASPECT), Center for Inquiry in Science Teaching and Learning. 
   
• In addition to the partnerships established through grants and other external gifts, two undergraduate courses are primarily service learning – Internship and Student Teaching for Early Childhood Ed, Elementary Ed, Middle School Ed, Secondary Ed, Special Ed, Physical Ed, Music, and Art certification programs. There are 30 sections of this course with 300-350 students enrolled per year in each course.
   
• The Center for Human Origin and Cultural Diversity in the College of Education is part of the Genographics program, a joint program (2007) with IBM and National Geographic, documenting the genealogy of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. This partnership is one of two in the United States.

New International Programs and Partnerships

• In 2005, the COE sent five students to China in its inaugural "student teaching abroad" program. The program continues, offering students international opportunities to certification and undergraduate teacher preparation students. Additional opportunities are being explored in France, China, Poland, South Africa, Korea, South America, and other nations of the world. 
   
• Continuing Education initiated (2007) an Alternative Certification for International Schools Teachers program for teachers of children of American ambassadors and diplomats oversees.
   
• The College of Education initiated a student teaching/internship and faculty exchange program with IUFM in Lyon, France. The Lyon Educational Exchange (LEE) is a four-week summer program in Lyon that provides an introduction to the French K-12 education system. The program includes English language student teaching at the secondary level in French schools, an internship in Lyon for French language certification, and an internship in a French or English-immersion school and various content areas at the elementary or secondary levels.
   
• In 2007, the College of Education and Korea University in Seoul established a student teaching exchange program and partnership. Student teaching in South Korea offers a wonderful opportunity to fulfill students’ certification requirements with an exceptional international experience. During the 2007-2008 Academic Year, Dr. Taeho Yu from Korea University served as a Visiting Professor in the College of Education’s Division of Teaching and Learning.

New Programs to Reduce Teacher Shortages

• The College established the Career Transitions Certificate Program to recruit and provide certification and support to mid-career professionals for second careers as teachers in the St. Louis Public Schools. Nearly 200 mid-career professionals who have completed this program are now teaching in the St. Louis Public Schools' most difficult-to-staff subject areas: science, math, technology, art and music.
   
• A second “transitions” program, the Special Education Transition (SET) Program established several years ago in the College's Continuing Education & Outreach Division to provide teachers with certification in Special Education. The program is helping address the critical special education teacher shortage in Missouri schools -- especially in hard-to-staff rural and urban schools.
  
  
• The Transition to Teaching program is an outgrowth of SET, and is offered through the COE's Continuing Education.  Focusing on secondary education certification areas and special education, the program serves teachers from any district in the state who have degrees but are not yet certified. The 3-year program features 21-27 credit hours of coursework that includes distance learning, interactive television, site visits and teacher mentoring for ongoing classroom support.  Transition to Teaching accepts between 50-70 individuals each year and the retention rate of these teachers after three years is consistently 80% or higher.   About 1/2 are in special education and the rest are secondary. During the last 10 years, teachers from nearly 100 school districts have participated. 
   
• The St. Louis Regional Partnership for Excellence in Urban Teacher Preparation was formed through the College’s efforts to address needs for more teachers who have the tools to become successful teachers in urban schools. With 10 area institutions of higher education plus the St. Louis Public Schools and East St. Louis Districts, the organization provides scholarships and sponsors eight specialized programs that lead to teaching certification.
   
• COE Continuing Education has been partnered with Teach for America since 2007.  Individuals work towards earning this teacher certification during their two year Teach for America commitment.  In 2007, over 60 Teach for America Corp members enrolled in coursework at UM-St. Louis.  That number is expected to increase to 70 or 80 in 2008-2009. 

New Facility for Connecting Education to Workforce

• In 1997, the College opened the St. Louis Regional Center for Education and Work, one of only a handful of similar efforts in the nation, to help connect the region's economic and educational goals. One of its main purposes is to connect K-12 classrooms with the world of work. The Center is a data and information resource for regional research and planning efforts in workforce development, career preparation, employment trends, job forecasting, serving economic development organizations, K-12 education, school counseling, labor force training, and social service providers. Key partners in RCEW are making this happen:
   
  • Pathfinders is an interactive, web-based resource to build bridges between careers and classrooms. The system provides opportunities for teachers and students to connect via visits, tours, job shadowing and summer internships to various companies throughout the region. Pathfinders helps teachers learn about the changing demands of the workforce and helps students explore a wide range of options so that they can better understand the need for a good education. In turn, businesses understand the real-world challenges of schooling.
  • The St. Louis regions Labor and Education Market Analysis project (LEMA) supports the St. Louis region's educational policy and workforce development communities by providing labor market research and analysis based on LEMA'S econometric modeling of the region's education and labor markets. The models estimate, among other things, regional labor demand and supply by industry, wages by industry, and related factors reflecting the future needs of the metropolitan area's labor market
  • In partnership with the world renowned Gallup Organization the RCEW rolled out the results for St. Louis, the first community in the nation to participate in The Quality of Community Life Survey. The scientifically developed survey is a national project developed by Gallup to measure and improve quality of life in cities and metropolitan areas across the country.
  • In partnership with ACT, established a St. Louis area ACT Testing Center on the UM-St. Louis campus.. The program ended in December, 2007 after a highly successful five-year relationship.

Increased Programming for K-12 Education Leaders

• Over the past six years the COE has been the largest preparer of new educators for the State of Missouri and the St. Louis region; largest preparer of principals and counselors for the areas schools; and our doctoral program in educational leadership is rapidly growing to prepare more education leaders in St. Louis and beyond.
   
• Two COE faculty who are retired administrators from the St. Louis Public Schools co-direct the Preparing Urban Leaders for Urban Schools Program. The College of Education program recruits the best and brightest teachers from the St. Louis Public Schools to become the next generation of principals. Funded through a grant from the Parsons Blewett Foundation, the two-year program leads to a master’s degree in education and a principal’s certificate from the state of Missouri. A significant number of graduates from this aspiring leaders program have been placed in positions of leadership in the St. Louis Public Schools. 
   
• The K-12 Leadership program has been reorganized:
   
  • A five-fold increase in doctoral program admissions
  • Added regular and non-regular faculty
  • Added Superintendent in Residence, a position that is held by an experienced former superintendent of schools who has made a successful career in urban education
  • Merged the Adult Education graduate programs into the Division of Education Leadership and Policy Studies
  • Collaborating with a number of universities, school districts, and community colleges to improve articulation regarding our graduate programs and to make our graduate programs, particularly at the doctoral level, more available, accessible, and accommodating to full time faculty and staff at those institutions. Searching for a new endowed professorship in Community College Teaching, Administration, and Leadership Academy.
     
• The COE partners with DESE to provide professional development opportunities for current and aspiring school leaders.

Increased Programming for Professionals in Higher Education

• We initiated a new Higher Education PhD/EdD program for individuals planning careers in higher education administration.
   
• New on-line Adult/Higher Education and Early Childhood Education Master's Degree programs have been developed and are currently serving students.
   
• Several institutional partnerships have been developed to serve more Missouri students, including the development of a program to assist Higher Education doctoral students who work at Southeast Missouri State University to obtain their degrees.
   
• The College has partnered with the Missouri Community College Association to create the Leadership Academy for preparing community college leaders and the new faculty position of Community College President in Residence/Mary Ann Lee Endowed Professor in Community College Teaching, Leadership, and the Leadership Academy. We are currently exploring a formalized relationship with the Missouri Community College Association to offer doctoral level programs designed to prepare educational leaders and faculty for community colleges in the state of Missouri.

Increased Support and Opportunities for Post-Graduate Education

• Increased the number of research assistantships available to doctoral students. These give students additional research experience and facilitate the scholarly activities of our own faculty, as well.
   
• The COE initiated a program to fund doctoral student dissertation research, enhancing their research activities as well as facilitating completion of their degree requirements.