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The Irish Nobel Prize-winning poet William Butler Yeats said, “Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.”
The College of Education and Health Professions is stoking many fires. There are many ways the college is working to fulfill Chancellor John White’s vision of the University of Arkansas as a nationally competitive, student-centered research university serving Arkansas and the world. As the chancellor has asked, we are focused on offering excellence in teaching, research and service; increasing the size and quality of the student body; enhancing diversity among our faculty, students and staff; and increasing public and private financial support.
Seventeen academic programs create a strong foundation for the college, ranging from childhood education to workforce development education. It’s not quite A to Z, but these programs represent incredibly diverse and rewarding professions.
We like to say we prepare the professionals who touch people’s lives, and that’s evident when you look at the students graduating from the college. Our graduates are the teachers, counselors, speech pathologists and administrators who guide children from preschool through graduate work. They are the nurses who help bring babies into the world and comfort the elderly through illness and infirmity; the rehabilitation counselors who help people with injuries or chronic illnesses live productive, independent lives; and the athletic trainers who take care of athletes on the playing field.
They are the recreation and exercise specialists who design recreational programs and advise individuals on ways to improve their quality of life and their health. They are the scientists whose work may ease the effects of diseases and the researchers whose studies will give schools the tools to help students learn more and compete in the global marketplace.
The college stands on this foundation to extend its reach beyond the Fayetteville campus, lighting fires that burn across the state. To reach people in their home communities all over Arkansas, we offer degree programs, some through completely online delivery and some through blended offerings, in human resource development, special education and educational administration.
We offer a master’s program in nursing, and most of the students in the program are working in health-care settings now and want to increase their qualifications. They will work as clinical nurse specialists – a position in which they will supervise other nurses but, as importantly, put observation and research to work, improving patient care.
The college extends its reach even further with the help of partnerships, in both public and private arenas. The college operates nearly two dozen research and service programs with help from outside funding.
With a mandate from the Arkansas Legislature, our Arkansas Leadership Academy has provided leadership-building instruction to more than 10,000 teachers and administrators since 1991. After starting with a leadership institute for educators, the academy has added special institutes for principals and superintendents, and two years ago the academy was charged with working with four schools, one in each of four geographical areas of the state, that had been placed in School Improvement status by the Arkansas Department of Education.
Partnerships with northwest Arkansas schools give our Master of Arts in Teaching students a full year of internship experience in these schools, and a partnership with the university’s athletic program gives our athletic training education students the opportunity to work with NCAA Division I collegiate athletes.
The college also operates the Intramural and Recreational Sports program for the University of Arkansas, serving students, faculty, staff, alumni and others. Nearly 17,000 people participated in fitness and wellness activities in our state-of-the-art facilities last year, with many of these activities conducted by our exercise science graduate students.
Through grants from the Arkansas Department of Human Services, our faculty train preschool teachers and child-care providers all over the state, helping to ensure children start school ready to learn. Through other grants from the state of Arkansas, our faculty and staff provide data analysis for the state’s testing systems so that teachers can go online and find out where challenges lie in their classrooms and how to help students learn better.
Grants from private foundations are funding research on education reform. This is information schools need to decide what techniques and methods to implement in a continuing effort to offer high-quality education.
We have a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help teachers who work with students who are learning English as a second language and a subcontract, also through the U.S. Department of Education, to conduct independent reviews of research on the effectiveness of educational interventions and programs.
Just touching on a few of these initiatives the college has under way illustrates the college’s commitment to improving the education and health systems of Arkansas and the world. That’s a lot of fires to keep burning.
Page last updated: 1/17/2008 17:01
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