National Award honors ECU teacher education

(Sept. 26, 2002)   —   East Carolina University has been selected as a winner of the national Christa McAuliffe Award for Excellence in Teacher Education.

The award, given annually by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, recognizes leadership and innovation in teacher education programs. The other recipients this year are Indiana State University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Constantine W. “Deno” Curris, president of the AASCU, said, “Many of our teacher education programs are doing outstanding jobs. We want to recognize the best among these programs.” The association represents more than 430 public colleges, universities and systems of higher education.

ECU was cited for its Latham Clinical Schools Network, a partnership between the university and 16 public school systems in eastern North Carolina. The network “provides a regional partnership for collaboration through broad involvement and communication that assists the partners in identifying common purposes to improve the quality of teacher preparation and increase student achievement,” AASCU said.

Dr. Marilyn Sheerer, dean of the ECU School of Education, said, “This award validates our outstanding teacher education program and, specifically, our work with public schools through our Latham Clinical Schools Network. We strongly believe that it is the most effective way for us to help improve public schools throughout eastern North Carolina and the rest of the state.”

ECU was established in 1907 as the East Carolina Teacher Training School, and teacher preparation has been a key element of the university ever since. Chancellor William V. Muse identified teacher education as one of his four areas of emphasis in his installation address last spring.

The Latham partnership program, launched in 1996, now represents 284 schools with nearly 167,000 students. It annually provides settings for more than 2000 field placements of education students and over 400 internships.