Reflections on an exceptional year

Education at Illinois is thriving, and that success is due to our leading scholars in the classroom, our enterprising students who often partake in research with professors, and our alumni, who are some of the most prominent practitioners in education.

We have experienced a truly eventful year at the College of Education at Illinois. From the implementation of a new degree program a year ago to seeing our inspired and inspiring Class of 2015 graduates receive their degrees at convocation, we feel great pride in our accomplishments of the last year. The below happenings are a sampling of what has occurred and why we are hopeful about the future:

  • We have developed a new degree program to prepare educators for the 21st century.new curriculum
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  • We have transformed our teacher preparation programs with extended field experience and mentorship.
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  • We continue to nurture within our College forward-thinking edupreneurs and innovation.
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  • We welcomed eight new faculty members who are delivering the most advanced scholarship in their disciplinary fields.
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  • We held a groundbreaking event—the Illinois Learning Sciences Design Laboratory: Agroundbreaking event Lightning Symposium—on behalf of the Illinois campus that could transform learning.
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  • We offered our first MOOC class to highlight the importance of digital technology in education.
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  • We were privileged to have seen honored numerous well-deserving faculty members, students, alumni, and staff.
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  • We launched a new website that communicates our three pillars of the College: teaching, research, and service.

Again, these undertakings are but a sampling of our 2014-2015 retrospective. Throughout these larger-scale achievements, our professors continue to receive grants and present research that shapes society within the realms of social justice, education policy, autism, bullying, and digital learning; our alumni and donors have been recognized with prestigious awards from the College, the campus, and beyond; and our graduates continue to formulate education policy and monumentally enhance the lives of diverse learners.

Our College has led the campus in a number of significant ways. We have actively participated in processes that grapple with issues related to our demographic makeup and the productive ways in which we can relate as scholars and students, in our difference, epistemological, cultural and social. We have also led the campus in embracing the affordances on new technologies for teaching and learning. Our high-tech new classrooms have been regarded as state-of-the-art and are attracting a lot of interest across campus. We have contributed to campus policies regarding innovation in teaching and learning, and have brought together a number of colleges with the support of the office of the VCR to advance the design and delivery of new tools for new learning. Our new website has been noted for its eloquent and pleasing look and the way in which it relates how the College is differentiated from its peers. All of this work—and the subsequent recognition that sometimes results from it—is transformational.

As noted again by U.S. News & World Report, we are a top-25 education college that is known for its foundational research; such work is ingrained in our makeup. This couldn’t happen without your committment and engagement with Education at Illinois. We thank you, and we look forward to another prosperous and accomplished year.

Finally, I would like to note that Carl Wieman, a Nobel Prize-winning physics professor at Stanford, said that we understand more about the contextual influences on the behavior of atoms than on students. Because most people have experienced schooling, they often have a viewpoint on what needs to be done to improve it. This is an issue that educators and policymakers have to deal with as they grow.

Our students, turned graduates, should remember this during the difficult moments: No vocation is more important to the well-being of communities than education. It’s what we do, it’s what we passionately believe in, and it’s how the world will conquer challenging and complex future issues.

In short, it’s why the College of Education at Illinois will continue to thrive.

Yours in Orange and Blue,

Mary Kalantzis
Professor and Dean

Addendum: Remembering a Great Leader of the College

Former deans and current dean of the College of Education at Illinois
From left in photo, former deans Rupert N. Evans (1963-68), Mildred Griggs (1995-2000), Susan Fowler (2000-06), and Dean Mary Kalantzis (2007-present)

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the passing of a valued former dean and professor of the College of Education at Illinois. Rupert N. Evans passed away on April 24 at the age of 94. He was with the College for 32 years in various influential capacities and will always be remembered by many within the University family for his easygoing, thoughtful nature. He supported the College long after retiring, and his memory has made a lasting mark on all of us. I and numerous others had the privilege of being touched by his graciousness and are grateful for his service and the dignified legacy he left.

I encourage you to read more about Dr. Evans and the lasting effect he had on our College, the University, and the Champaign-Urbana community.

– Dean Kalantzis