Establish UConn's Neag School of Education as a national model for teacher preparation.
Enhance qualifications necessary for acceptance into Neag School programs.
Provide an innovative curriculum offering distinct benefits to students who gain acceptance to, and successfully complete, the teacher preparation program.
Recruit and retain faculty of national stature in the field of teacher preparation.
Permit application for admittance after the successful completion of two years of general education with outstanding minimum cumulative grade point averages. Utilize rigorous requirements to foster enrollment of the highest- achieving students.
Establish a five-year integrated bachelor's/master's program in teacher education that requires a specialty subject area and provides extensive clinical experiences.
Lend faculty expertise to national debate and analysis related to improvements in the delivery of educational content and the quality of classroom instruction.
Students enrolled in the teacher education program represent some of the University's finest students with an average grade point average of 3.4. As graduates, UConn alumni are highly recruited. Last year, almost all students had already been placed in professional positions or been accepted into programs to further their education at the time of their graduation. Ninety percent of those accepting school appointments chose to stay in Connecticut with about a third taking jobs in the state's most challenging school districts.
The recent No Dream Denied report by the National Commission for Teaching and America's Future identified the Neag School among the best programs in the nation for teacher education. The Carnegie Corporation of New York designated UConn one of seven "Teachers for a New Era" schools and awarded the Neag School and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences a five-year, $5.5 million grant to improve the quality of teachers and teacher preparation.
Neag School Dean Richard Schwab was one of only two deans of schools of education to serve on the board of the National Commission for Teaching and America's Future. Del Siegle, associate professor of educational psychology, serves as secretary on the Board of Directors of the Council for Exceptional Children, a group of parents, teachers and educators working to address the unique needs of children with demonstrated gifts and talents. Joseph Renzulli, professor of educational psychology, is director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, the only federally funded center of its kind in the U.S.