PULLMAN, Wash. — The College of Education at Washington State University is the only college in the Pacific Northwest selected as a partner institution in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, announced Judy Mitchell, dean of the college.
The Carnegie Foundation selected ten colleges or departments of education nationwide as partner institutions to participate in a five-year research and action project aimed at improving doctoral education at American universities, Mitchell explained.
The project will link these innovative institutions, support and study experimentation in doctoral programs, and help identify and create model doctoral programs, according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In addition, the foundation selected 22 other partner institutions (none from the Pacific Northwest) in the fields of chemistry, English, and mathematics as part of this national initiative.
“This is very significant for our college,” Dean Mitchell said. “The selection by the Carnegie Initiative is a recognition of the quality of our faculty and programs, and it is also an acknowledgment of our vision of what our doctorate will become. We’ll be working with some of the most-respected educational institutions in the United States to share ideas and think about our common problems and solutions. Our work through this initiative will impact all teaching, since we prepare students to be teachers and to be teachers of teachers.
“We are the stewards of our discipline,” Mitchell continued. “The discipline of education has been changing very rapidly, especially at the K-12 level. Our undergraduate teacher preparation programs have been changing significantly in response. And now, we were beginning to look at our graduate programs. With the support of the Carnegie Initiative, we will be at the forefront of that discussion nationwide.”
In addition, Mitchell expects that the positive impact at WSU will be significant in several ways: in growing reputation, in increasing numbers of better-prepared graduate students, and in the attraction of additional outstanding faculty.
Howard Grimes, dean of the WSU Graduate School, echoed Mitchell’s assessment. “By the selection of our College of Education as a partner in the national Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, both our current excellence and our potential to transform regional educational programs is acknowledged,” he said. “The state and regional impact of this Initiative cannot be underestimated. WSU stands to become ‘the’ institution in the Pacific Northwest where the best educators acquire the best training and graduate degrees in education.”
According to WSU President V. Lane Rawlins, selection of the College of Education for participation in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate is another example of the growing national recognition of WSU’s world-class faculty and programs. “I am very proud that our education college is joining such an elite group of universities in this exciting intellectual enterprise of invigorating and enriching doctoral education,” the president said. “This national initiative will benefit both WSU and our state as our better-prepared doctoral graduates in turn influence the education of countless students in our elementary and secondary schools.”
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was founded by American entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered by an act of Congress in 1906. The foundation, headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., is an independent policy and research center with a mission of improving educational policy and practice. More information, including a complete list of all participants in the initiative, is available at www.carnegiefoundation.org.
In addition to WSU, the other partner institutions selected by the Carnegie Foundation include colleges and departments of education at Arizona State University, Indiana University at Bloomington, Michigan State University, The Ohio State University, University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of Northern Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of Southern California.
