Standard 6.1

Standard 6 Element 1 Unit Leadership and Authority

Unit Organization

All professional education programs at Alabama State University are administered through the College of Education.  The management and coordination of the programs is centralized in the dean’s office.  The dean is the chief administrative academic officer of the college and reports to the vice president for academic affairs who reports to the president of the university. 

The dean is supported by an assessment office director, a director and assistant director of professional and laboratory experiences, a director of certification, an assistant certification officer, an academic advisor, a program assistant, and three secretaries. The dean also operates with an external advisory board consisting of members of the community, superintendents, principals, and other educators who provide recommendations related to college operations.

The college is organized into four academic departments:  Curriculum and Instruction; Foundations and Psychology; Instructional Support Programs; Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. Each department is headed by a department chair who is responsible for departmental affairs. Within each department, programs are headed by program coordinators, who are faculty members granted release time to provide leadership and handle administrative functions for specific programs.

Several ancillary units are also included in the college  organization. The Teacher Education Center   provides advising and counseling    for pre-college admissions   and academic support and assistance for candidates. The Zelia Stephens Early Childhood Center functions as a laboratory school for the college’s early childhood education program.  The off-campus program office facilitates course offerings and programs at the off-campus sites in Birmingham, Brewton, and Mobile, Alabama.  The Central Alabama Regional Education Inservice Center , one of eleven such centers in the state, works in partnership with the ALSDE to provide professional development for teachers and administrators in seven school districts in the Alabama State University region. Figure 6.1, the college organizational chart, illustrates the relationships among the college’s various divisions.  In addition, several committees function within the college structure to review issues and initiate recommendations to improve programs and operations.

 Figure 6.1:   College of Education Organizational Chart

 

Click here to view organizational chart

Program Design, Implementation, and Evaluation
Program coordinators and program faculties are responsible for developing, implementing, and evaluating professional education programs designed to prepare educational professionals for work in P-12 schools as decision makers. These include the typical academic programs administered through the departments as well as special programs. Special programs, some funded by federal and state grants, include the Principal’s Center for School Reform, the Evening Child Care Program, the Food Safety Professional Development for Early Childhood Educators, the Abstinence Education Program, the Achievement Gap Initiative, workshops sponsored through the Special Education Program’s grant, and the Four-Year Degrees for Head Start Teachers Program. The college participates in the Reading First Teacher Education Network and the Reading Early Competencies in Teaching Excellence program, which, among other things, provides reading tutorials to struggling readers in P-12 schools. At its Brewton campus, Alabama State University sponsors the Southern Normal 21st Century Community Learning for Student Success, an academic enrichment program that provides intensive hands-on activities focusing on mathematics and science.

The Zelia Stephens Early Childhood Center was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 2006. This has allowed the College of Education to form a robust, collaborative relationship with the center, including joint presentations between college faculty and center faculty and a “Growing Your Child Portfolio” project in which college faculty assist families of center students in developing  assessment portfolios. College faculty work at the center to maintain their field-based recency as required by the ALSDE. The center hosts candidates in the early childhood education program for some of their field experiences. Now that the center is fully accredited, the college will be able to schedule the placement of early childhood candidates for student teaching experiences.

Program review and development are ongoing and are informed by such factors as revisions in state and professional standards, feedback from candidate and program performance data analyses, current trends and research, satisfaction surveys,  and collaboration with  P-12 partners and  advisory  groups.  Academic   program  and course changes are initiated at the program faculty level and move through the following channels  for  approval:  the academic  department  committee, department chair, the dean, the Faculty Senate (undergraduate curriculum – see pp. 10-11, Section 2.9.1, Faculty Handbook ) the Graduate Studies Council (graduate curriculum – see p. 16, Section 2.1.3.D, Faculty Handbook), and the vice president for academic affairs. 

The faculty, collectively and individually, are engaged in collaborative governance through the operation of the Faculty Senate (see p. 10, Section 2.9.1. Faculty Handbook). The Senate is the permanent representative body for advisement on matters under the jurisdiction of the faculty and academic administration. (See  www.alasu.edu/Faculty_Senate )

Admissions, Publications, and Student Services
Policies and guidelines related to recruiting, admissions, academic calendars, advisement and counseling, grading, fees, financial aid and other student services are described clearly and consistently in several documents, principally in the Undergraduate Catalog , the Graduate Catalog , and the Graduate Handbook. These, and additional materials such as the Student Handbook, The Pilot , academic calendars and schedules, and the unit’s  handbooks and guides provide candidates with college policies, processes, and procedures and are updated on a regular basis. Admissions and counseling information as well as specific information related to housing, health services, colleges, and programs are also available to candidates on-line (www.alasu.edu/) , as are on-line admissions and registration procedures. Several of these publications are available for review in the exhibit room.

Course schedules for each semester carry a complete listing of college advisers.  Each candidate is assigned an adviser who assists the candidate with academic concerns. In the College of Education, the average advising load per faculty member is 44 candidates. The Teacher Education Center also provides both personal advising and counseling services for candidates. Academic programs provide program related advising. In addition, the director of certification and the assistant certification officer provide advising services related to certification issues. Counseling services are outlined in the Undergraduate Catalog (p. 54), the Graduate Catalog , (p. 35), and in The Pilot (p. 8). These services include student orientations, individual counseling, crises and psychological services, and group counseling.

Collaborative Practitioners
Collaboration between the College of Education, P-12 partner schools, and other members of the professional community occurs in a number of ways to support candidates' learning in professional education programs at both the initial and advanced levels. 

The COE, the professional education community, and P-12 schools share and integrate resources and expertise through the advisory councils and committees for the unit and the departments. These councils and committees provide a forum for ALSDE representatives, superintendents, P-12 principals, teachers, and other school staff as well as faculty and candidates in the college to review, plan, and evaluate curricula and other experiences, and to offer suggestions for updating and strengthening college programs.  Members of the councils and committees also play an important role in the development and adoption of the unit's conceptual framework and assessment system which guide the delivery and evaluation of the curriculum.  Advisory groups include the Teacher Education Advisory Council (TEAC) , the Challenge Advisory Committee (CAC) , the Recency Advisory Committee , and departmental and program advisory committees.

The purpose of the unit's Teacher Education Advisory Council (TEAC) is twofold:   to strengthen partnerships with participating schools in which teacher candidates are placed for field and clinical experiences; to solicit suggestions for ways to enhance curricula, pedagogies,  and field experiences at the undergraduate and graduate levels.  The TEAC is composed of administrators from the local school systems, and deans and directors from the COE and from other relevant colleges within the university.  The TEAC has been involved in program revisions for secondary education majors; preparations to improve the Praxis II  scores of candidates; plans for developing more effective ways to involve candidates in field and clinical experiences and to place candidates in more diverse settings.

The unit's Challenge Advisory Committee (CAC) provides opportunities for school and community partners to work together in educational outreach projects as well as in reviewing and evaluating COE programs and processes.  This committee is composed of COE faculty and a broad range of representatives from the educational communities in Montgomery and surrounding counties where COE candidates are placed for field experiences and internships.  The CAC is divided into three (3) subcommittees which are engaged in the following projects and activities:  a partnership with Paterson Elementary School that involves the Paterson faculty and COE faculty and candidates in collaboration for school improvement, teacher education improvement, and community engagement in enhancing education; an Academy of Information Technology for COE candidates and P-12 students; a Recency Teaching Exchange and Support System for COE faculty and teachers to share teaching/learning strategies; activities to acquaint candidates and teachers with the propositions and procedures of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS);  initiatives for curriculum reviews and internship improvements.  

A Recency Advisory Committee has been established to identify acceptable and effective partnering activities and procedures for satisfying the recency requirement mandated by the Alabama State Board of Education for COE faculty teaching methods courses.  The committee is composed of unit faculty, faculty from other colleges within the university where COE candidates take courses, and P-12 educators.  Collaboration in this group assists the unit in keeping abreast of the trends, issues, and practices in P-12 settings where candidates engage in field experiences and internships.

Departments engage community educators and stakeholders in collaborations through program advisory committees.  The Department of Instructional Support Programs, for example, includes representatives from program advisory committees in departmental meetings and a variety of other departmental deliberations.  These external education professionals are active participants in the planning and assessment of the departmental curricula.  In addition, faculty in the unit serve on the university's Academic Computing Advisory Committee where they work in collaboration with representatives from P-12 schools and from other units within the university, with adjunct instructors, graduate assistants, and the Technology in Motion state representative. This committee designs and monitors instructional and information technology plans for all university units impacting academics.  These plans include courses and training for COE teacher candidates and faculty development workshops and support sessions for the faculty.

Recognized College Leadership and Professional Development Outreach
Alabama State University participates in several activities that confirm its recognition as leader both on campus and in the community. Primary among these is the unit’s participation in the Centennial Hill Project, sponsored by the Montgomery Improvement Association, and its participation in Partners in Education, a collaborative, broad-based, community effort. The college has taken an active leadership role in the Achievement Gap Initiative, aimed at assisting public schools to improve the educational success of minority students. Individual faculty members also assume leadership in a wide variety of community organizations.

College services extend beyond the college. Professional development services are provided to the university community as a means of promoting effective teaching. These have included technology workshops and training in the State Department of Education’s evaluation system for P-12 educators (PEPE), for the faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences, and technology workshops for scholars and P-12 students. Cross-college programs such as Writing Across the Curriculum and the Alabama Reading Initiative have also been implemented. College faculty have conducted workshops for faculty outside the college on the use of the internet as an instructional support tool and have provided a variety of requested services to state personnel.  The college received a $100,000 grant from the Alabama State Department of Education to establish and implement the Principal’s Center for School Reform , in Brewton, Alabama, which serves 25 established principals and 25 aspiring principals. Another project funded by the Alabama State Department of Education is the AS3 Initiative : Analysis and Alignment of Standards for Student Success in Reading and Mathematics, which services four school districts in the Central Alabama Black Belt Region: Dallas County, Lowndes County, Montgomery County, and Selma City.

The Central Alabama Regional Education Inservice Center , housed in  Alabama State University’s College of Education, provides ongoing staff development for over 4,000 teachers and 150 educational administrators in 7 school districts of  the  region.  The center partners with the ALSDE in delivering services through several ongoing, job-embedded, professional development projects. These include the Alabama Reading Initiative; the Alabama Mathematics, Science,  and Technology Initiative; Technology in Motion; the Alabama Statewide Mentoring Program, and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certification Project.  COE faculty participate as consultants with the center, and COE preservice candidates are invited to attend inservice training activities as guests. The College of Education web page highlights the unit’s involvement in several professional development and outreach activities. (See http://www.alasu.edu/Education  ).