College of Education to host Professional Education Winter Assessment Conference Jan. 25

Eastern Michigan University has two more years before the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) sends a team of examiners to see how the university's teacher training programs stack up.

But don't let the date fool you. Since NCATE requires universities to present three years' worth of data on their education programs, EMU's next NCATE accreditation is happening right now.

Gollnick

To keep the nearly 200 faculty and staff involved in the accreditation in tune with the latest requirements, EMU's College of Education will host its third annual Professional Education Winter Assessment Conference Jan. 25, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., in the Student Center Ballroom. Faculty in the colleges of technology, health and human services, and arts and sciences who teach methods classes to COE students — in short, everyone involved in the teaching of teachers — also will be involved.

Speakers include NCATE Executive Senior Vice President Donna Gollnick and Michigan Department of Education consultant Bonnie Rockafellow. Vernon Polite, dean of EMU's College of Education, also will use the conference to showcase a new partnership with area school districts that's been two years in the making.

"We're so large and we only have this one opportunity a year to come together to talk about what we're doing to implement the assessment strategy," Polite said. "The university has been very generous. The first year, they gave us $730,000 to begin planning for NCATE accreditation and, this year, they've given us $103,000. So, this is a major investment from the university budget in difficult financial times, and we want to make sure, on our end, that we're doing everything we need to do to make sure we're up to par come accreditation time."

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