Kathy Schultz, the incoming dean for the School of Education, sat down with Nicholas Garcia from to discuss teaching, the educational landscape, and her upcoming role in the School. Schultz聽will begin as dean in August, and she will succeed Lorrie Shepard, who has led the school as dean for 15 years. Currently Schultz聽is dean of聽the School of Education at Mills College, a liberal arts college in Oakland, Calif.聽
Among other things, Schultz and Garcia discussed community engagement, urban education,聽the next generation of students,聽and聽strengthening the teaching profession.
"One of the things that happens in education is that there is this revolving set of targets for who to blame. It鈥檚 the parents or the children who are being blamed. More recently it鈥檚 been the teachers and the teacher educators. Some people would say the truth is it鈥檚 none of those 鈥� it鈥檚 poverty," she told Chalkbeat. "But I think that rather than blaming, there has to be a focus on, 鈥榃hat are the rewards? How do you recognize the successes of teachers?鈥�"
Before Schultz could lay out her vision, she said she needs to "keep learning" about what聽is currently happening聽in the School of Education. She plans to build on the School of Education's existing strengths聽and those strengths attracted her to the position in the first place.
"This is such a strong school of education," Schultz said. "What I really want to do is build on its strengths. I want to build on all the incredible programs going on already while bringing in my own vision to support people to move forward.
"There is an incredible faculty here. And from what I know, an incredible group of students. The kinds of programs and the research agenda and community engagement that people are doing make it really strong. The scholars here are nationally and internationally recognized. There鈥檚 this very nice combination of people committed to educational research and educational practice and educational policy. That kind of combination is really rare."