As we enter the last month of the semester, we celebrate our colleagues who made it possible for us to successfully meet all standards for our NCATE reaccreditation. The importance of this goes directly to our ability to prepare and recommend for certification those students who enter our range of educator preparation programs. Thanks to all whom for two years or longer constructed programs, collected and analyzed data, and made connections with students and community partners. And thanks to those colleagues called upon during the three-day visit, during Spring Break, who came in to do a poster session or meet last-minute requests from the accreditation team members. I would be remiss if I didn’t make mention of Mary Ariail and Carla Tanguay, for authoring the annual Unit Assessment Report necessary for NCATE; Peter Swanson of the College of Arts and Sciences, for chairing the Professional Education Faculty; Shea Allman and Ruchi Bhathagar, for the logistics of organizing the mountain of information and analyses; for IT staff members, such as Sam Daniel, for deploying all this information in a manner that was accessible to the NCATE team; and to Joyce Many, for her vision of how to approach accreditation and for her indefatigable, almost daily leadership that resulted in such a success. We will celebrate some of our outstanding students, faculty, staff and alumni at this year’s Honors Day ceremony, which will take place Thursday, April 11, 2013, at 4 p.m. in the Speakers Auditorium. Prior to the ceremony, there will be a reception for scholarship recipients and many of the alumni and friends whose gifts fund the scholarships. At the ceremony, we are proud to recognize Herbert Garrett, Jr., as the recipient of our 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award. Herb earned his Ed.S. in administration from the College of Education. Since 2000, he has been executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association. Before that, he was superintendent in Henry County Schools and a principal in Marietta and Covington. I would like to extend two particular notes of congratulations to colleagues on behalf of the college. Congratulations to Joyce King for being elected president-elect of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). This is a singular honor for Joyce and her career. Her service to AERA includes chairing the International Relations Committee and serving as co-editor of the Review of Educational Research. Dr. King was presented the Distinguished Career Contribution Award from the AERA Committee on Scholars of Color in Education. Congratulations to Brett Criswell, Brian Thoms and the team that put together and brought to Georgia State the American Physical Society’s PhysTEC Comprehensive Site award. This prestigious award will assist in the redesign of elements of our teacher preparation program in physics education in order for us to become a significant producer of certified physics teachers from diverse backgrounds. In closing, please mark your calendars for the following end-of-semester dates:
Sincerely, Paul Alberto |