Eastern Michigan University's Department of English Language
and Literature recently learned it had earned national
recognition from the National Council of Teachers of English
(NCTE), capping a four-year process with an enthusiastic
thumbs-up from its peers.
The recognition, announced Jan. 28, is part of the College
of Education's broader National Council for Accreditation
of Teacher Education (NCATE) accreditation process. NCATE
uses specific professional associations like NCTE to evaluate
teacher education within subject areas. But, it's also
an honor unto itself.
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NATIONAL RECOGNITION: Eastern Michigan
University's Department of English Language and
Literature recently achieved "nationally recognized"
accreditation from the National Council of Teachers
of
English (NCTE). |
As recently as two years ago, about two-thirds of the
schools that tried for the NCTE's accreditation failed,
according to EMU Associate Professor Doug Baker, who led
the accreditation project for the English department.
For schools that do make the cut, NCTE offers two levels
of accreditation. A school that's "Recognized, with conditions" has
work yet to do to meet all of the necessary standards. "Nationally
Recognized" programs, like Eastern's, have shown they meet
all the standards of the NCTE/NCATE.
"It's a big deal because it means you're recognized nationally
as a school, in a sense by a jury of our peers," said Baker. "When
we get national recognition, it's a way of saying, 'Yes,
you're doing the things we believe, as a body, you should
do, and you're doing them well.'"
Since 2003, when NCTE's current recognition process began,
332 English programs across the country have been reviewed.
Approximately 170 either received the recognition on the
first try and had to complete revisions to meet the standards,
said Leni Cook, NCTE/NCATE program coordinator.
Baker and company created assessments tailored to figure
out how well EMU's English education, linguistics, literature
and writing programs prepare future teachers. The assessments
collect data on 23 different standards (and their respective
substandards) set by NCTE.
The task was complicated by the sheer size of EMU's teacher
education program, by its large number of nontraditional
students, and by the wide variety of people and disciplines
involved. Baker said he tried to create an atmosphere where
people weren't afraid to raise questions and explore different
ideas.
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Fleischer |
"We developed some very creative and smart assessments
that get at how students are learning," said English Education
Coordinator Cathy Fleischer. "As much as people sneer at
assessments, it truly has revealed some things that we
need to work harder at, be better at and do a better job
of for our students who are about to become teachers."
English department members wasted no time making improvements
based on the data the assessments produced. They realized,
for example, that future teachers were getting piecemeal
exposure to the young adult literature that's such a big
part of teaching middle school and high school English.
So, they worked with the children's literature department
and created an adolescent literature class.
They bolstered the requirements for an English minor from
24 credit hours to 30, and added a course segment on media
literacy.
"As a department, I think we learned to trust the process," Baker
said. "By trusting it, I don't mean buying into everything
someone else said you should do, but working together toward
a common goal.
"I knew it was working when I saw people start to use
the data to make a case for things they needed. We're starting
to see the process benefit people in other ways."
The English department's accreditation is good for five-to-seven
years, but Baker and Fleischer said the department is already
preparing for the next round. The assessment system was
designed to be perpetual — and to keep the next group
that prepares for an accreditation from having to reinvent
the wheel.
"I think we're always trying to improve the model," Baker
said. "The system we're trying to set up is one that asks
us to keep looking at ourselves, looking at student progress,
and continuing to meet across departments and colleges
and the university to look for the best opportunities for
our students. If we do that, we're going to meet the criteria
any accrediting body is asking of us."
