UTEP’s College of Education:
An Abbreviated History
In The late 1920s, the Texas College of Mines, originally focused primarily on teaching the scientific knowledge of mining and metallurgy, began offering course work to prepare teachers in response to an important regional need. By 1936, a collection of courses leading to the teaching certificate had developed into an education major. Over the next six decades, teacher preparation continued to grow in its mission and role, both within the University and the region. By 1960, the College of Mines had become The University of Texas at El Paso, and more than 800 students were enrolled in programs of studies designed to prepare them for becoming teachers. In 1968 the College of Education moved into its nine-story classroom, laboratory and office building (the Education building), and these facilities have been modified over the years to accommodate program changes. Presently, the College of Education’s programs in its three departments (Teacher Education, Educational Psychology and Special Services, and Educational Leadership and Foundations) employ over 60 tenured and tenure-track faculty and enroll over 1800 undergraduate and 1200 graduate students. Working cooperatively with other colleges in the University and with local school districts, the College is involved in externally funded instruction, demonstration, and research projects totaling more than $5,000,000.
UTEP’s College of Education has a history of active involvement in efforts to improve teacher education. In the 1970s and 1980s the College of Education implemented the Triple T project, multiple cycles of the Teacher Corps program, and the Bilingual Education Training Opportunities program for minority teachers. Another major effort to move away from traditional teacher preparation was the establishment of a field-oriented, three-semester block program (ELTEP and STEP) in which cohorts of students spent half of the semester in the field and were governed by a team of faculty and cooperating teachers. A scaled down version of this field-oriented program has remained in operation for early childhood and elementary candidates. In 1985, the UTEP Alternative Certification Program was initiated with 16 interns; today it has more than 100 alterns and serves as an excellent example of the College of Education’s responsiveness to local and regional need through its field-based teacher preparation efforts.
Major Reform Initiatives
The National Network of Educational Renewal
The University of Texas at El Paso and, more specifically, the College of Education, has been engaged in a major renewal effort in collaboration with its partners in public education. In 1992, the University and the College of Education were invited to join John Goodlad's National Network for Educational Renewal. This Network of 25 universities at 16 major sites involving 93 school districts and 293 Partner Schools has created one of the most effective movements for the simultaneous renewal of teacher education and the public schools in the United States. This work has led to a complete restructuring of the College's teacher preparation program to a field-based program to prepare teachers in collaboration with public school colleagues in 15 Professional Development Schools (Partner Schools). All of these teacher preparation sites are schools that have been undergoing significant reform and renewal through this initiative. Students preparing to be elementary school teachers, for example, work in cohorts, are scheduled to take their campus classes together, and spend two semesters in the field at Partner Schools, under the joint supervision of university faculty and public school teachers who act as clinical faculty. The College of Education built strong partnerships with K-12 schools and regional communities over the years as well as, more recently, interdisciplinary partnerships with faculty and programs in Liberal Arts, Health Sciences, Engineering, and Science/Mathematics.
The Carnegie “Teachers for a New Era Project”
In 2002, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, with support from the Ford and Annenburg Foundations launched a visionary initiative designed to reconceptualize teacher education for the 21st century. The University of Texas at El Paso was selected as one of eleven universities nationwide to play a pivotal role in this groundbreaking reform initiative, known as “Teachers for a New Era” (TNE). The project’s goals include “. . . a catalytic revision of teacher education led by colleges and universities committed to a new future for teaching and learning in the nation’s schools.” UTEP plays a critical role in helping to develop the essential principles and practices for developing future teachers through carefully designed activities, documentation of outcomes, and ongoing analysis of the evidence. This visionary reform initiative is designed to build on existing strengths to stimulate construction of excellent teacher education programs. UTEP and the other 10 selected universities are engaged in developing research and policy for development of this national dissemination model. The Teachers for a New Era Project is organized by three broad design principles. First, a teacher education program should be guided by a respect for evidence. A culture of research, inquiry, and data analysis should permeate the program. Among the features of this culture will be attention to pupil learning gains accomplished under the tutelage of teachers who are graduates of the program. Thus, pupil learning will become one measure of the effectiveness of a teacher education program. Second, faculty in the disciplines of the arts and sciences must be fully engaged in the education of prospective teachers, especially in the areas of subject matter understanding and general and liberal education. Finally, education should be understood as an academically taught clinical practice profession. That means that there will be close cooperation between colleges of education and actual practicing schools; master teachers in the schools will hold appropriate appointments as clinical faculty in the college of education; and graduates of a teacher education program will serve a residency under supervision of a mentor during a two year period of induction into the teaching profession.