Aaron Berkowitz – General Assignment Reporter
Southern Connecticut State University’s School of Education earned a full five-year accreditation by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). The accreditation is good news for the school of education and its new dean, Dr. Stephen Hegedus, but came with a probationary period to assure the council’s decision.
According to Hegedus, universities are usually examined every seven years for reaccreditation, but were visited early by external examiners to see if the school’s programs are successful in their intentions.
“They are a set of six standards that we are evaluated on,” said Hegedus. “These cover things from assessments to curriculum delivery, assuring clinical field experience and diverse context, to determining whether or not the university is committed and have the right resources. Their assessment covers a wide variety of standards in order to assure excellence.”
Hegedus said the school is now operating under a five-year accreditation from the Council of Educator Preparation (CAEP) and is already preparing for their next accreditation.
“The state feels that we have more work to be done than our Nation Accrediting Agency,” said Hegedus. “We have already been working on the areas that we both feel could be better and we have invited the state department of education back in March 2015.”
In order to be prepared for the state department of education’s visit in the up and coming semester, Hegedus said the school has already been working on data collection of students to assure that students have the right “professional disposition.”
“We have instruments that we use to collect this data, but we need to do it in more systematic ways across the entire school of education to be able to say something about our programs,” said Hegedus. “We have had to refine some of those assessments and put systems in place to make sure that we are doing this in a rigorous fashion. We also need to make sure that we are placing students in a diverse population of students to assure that they are getting a well-rounded education to meet the challenges of teaching in both urban and suburban context.”
The relationship the university has with New Haven Public schools has played a big role in the students who want to become teachers getting the necessary experience, said Hegedus.
After working for 14 years at the University of Massachusetts, he took over the position of dean this semester and is very optimistic for what the future of the school holds. His position previously filled by Deb Newton who served as the interim Dean since 2012.
“I’m very happy to be here,” said Hegedus. “Southern is a great place, has a great reputation, there is a lot of opportunity here and room to grow. “
President Papazian said when Hegedus was hired that he was a perfect match for the direction Southern is headed in and even more so for a university that graduates the most teachers in the state.
Hegedus said in week 16 of the job he doesn’t have an exact vision for the school, but he does want to make sure that the students’ education well being is the number one priority.
“I have more educational visions, in general, where we would focus on putting the students in the center of the classroom,” said Hegedus. “We need to insure that all students have voice in the classroom, that all students have access to the best teaching no matter the background. We also need to allow access to the latest methods of teaching and latest educational technologies. That only comes from teachers being prepared with that same mindset and philosophy.”
