The Georgia Professional Standards Commission recently extended the national and state accreditation review for the Albany State University College of Education until the fall of 2014.
“A collaborative group of committed faculty and staff achieved that goal through meetings to re-design the Unit Assessment System (UAS) and to recruit key, highly qualified personnel to oversee the on-going implementation of the UAS,” said Dr. Kimberly King-Jupiter, dean of the College of Education. “The extension is a vote of confidence in the type of work that our College is committed to, and it is an expression of confidence based on the activities of this past year.”
The ASU College of Education is targeting excellence on the upcoming National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education assessment. Among key activities in which the college is engaging are efforts to improve the curricula design, program administration and unit assessment.
Like any other College of Education with highly qualified faculty, the COE must rely on an understanding of the standards guiding their professional disciplines to ensure that its programs are standards-based, rigorous and engaging.
“It means that our assessment team must now implement Live-Text as a tool to drive our Unit Assessment System (UAS) and that they must work to fully implement the UAS,” King-Jupiter said. “It means convening our College and departmental advisory committees to ensure that the vision that drives our College is meaningful and concentric to the challenges facing educators every day and the communities we serve.”
The COE intends to leverage its experiences at national conferences and use the expertise within the state to improve the programs it currently offers and to develop other innovative programs to meet the new and emerging needs of leadership in the region.
Accreditation by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Georgia Professional Standards Commission (GaPSC) are the hallmarks of excellence for any College of Education operating in the State of Georgia as well as the nation. These hallmarks come with very high expectations regarding the administration of programs that prepare teachers and other school professionals.
“While no College is flawless in the administration of programs and the evaluation of educators, that should be our aspiration,” King-Jupiter said. “Although there is every indication that we would have passed our review during spring, 2012, national discussions about the need to move to ‘target’ performance on all standards resulted in the need for a new benchmark, one of excellence.”
