Dear Colleagues:
I hope you had a happy St. Patrick’s Day! May the luck of the Irish be with all of you! I know that many of you told me you had plans to write during Spring Break, so I wish you well in that endeavor and also encourage you to find time to rest and relax too.
Last week Mike Stewart and I spent time at the Legislature as part of the Florida Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s, Day on the Hill. This provided an excellent opportunity for us to meet 1:1 with several legislators and to share what our College is doing to prepare educators, enhance their professional development, and conduct research that has a positive impact on improving K-12 education. Scenes from that meeting are shown here. We won’t know more about the budget for next year until after the Legislative session has ended. Rest assured the President and Provost along with Government Relations are representing us well in Tallahassee.
This week, Bruce Jones and I attended the Council of Great City Schools Legislative Conference in Washington, D. C. with Superintendent Elia and Candy Olson, Hillsborough County Public School District Board Member. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed the group. As you can see from the program, we were briefed on federal Stimulus funding, Title I, IDEA, and the NCLB Re-authorization. Given our strong partnership with Hillsborough public school district, I anticipate that we will have many opportunities to work with them on professional development and other initiatives stemming from this new funding.
AERA is Monday, April 13 – Friday, April 17, 2009 in San Diego, CA. I am pleased that so many faculty and graduate students are presenting this year. “Disciplined Inquiry: Education Research in the Circle of Knowledge,” is this year’s theme. You can download the full schedule of COEDU presentations available in a pdf document posted on our website under “Announcements.”
I’ve enjoyed meeting with groups of faculty in my regular program meetings. Recently, I’ve meet with Physical Education, Special Education (doctoral program), and Exercise Science faculty. I always enjoy learning first hand about your research, our programs, and how well our students are progressing.
We’ve been concentrating on working with the Chairs to develop the COEDU’s Compact Plan, which is due to the Provost May 1. Between now and then I’ll be finding ways to solicit your ideas on the major priorities we plan to include.
Regarding summer, the Provost indicated that colleges should offer approximately the same summer program they did last year. Chairs have been planning those offerings and we await final word on our allocation before they can finalize the schedule.
Best regards,
Colleen
