As challenging as this year has been, we have a lot to celebrate as 2020 comes to a close and 2021 begins. Here are just some of our top highlights from the CU 麻豆影院 School of Education's year, and we look forward to new possibilities in the coming year.
We officially moved into a new campus home in the Fleming building that is offering us聽opportunities to redesign how we work and learn together.
The fall 2020 semester marked the first time the School of Education hosted education classes in the newly redesigned spaces in the Fleming building. The two-phased renovation project began in 2019, and fundraising efforts are continuing to complete the second phase of our renovations. We are looking forward to building innovative learning labs, and we are delighted that all of our programs and centers will be housed under the same roof once complete. Learn more about the building听补苍诲 take a peek inside the building.
We adapted learning and working environments as we continue to commit to protecting our herd.
We are proud of the ways our students, faculty, and staff came together as a community during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to offer resources and support as we maintained distance, wore聽masks, and adapted to changing times. Our redesigned classrooms and study spaces support聽physical distancing and reduced density, and upgraded air exchange systems safely replace聽classroom air twice per hour. Our Office of Field Experiences led partnerships with other teacher education programs across the state聽to work with聽the Colorado Department of Education to rethink聽student teaching. We launched the Buffs for Frontline Service Employees program to support support the children of聽CU 麻豆影院鈥檚 essential employees聽with tutoring. We acknowledge聽.
We recommitted to justice and our work during uncertain times with compassion and creativity.
We recommitted to racial justice听补苍诲 anti-racist teaching in our school and higher education broadly. We listened to and centered the voices and visions for a reimagined future of education from current educators leading CU 麻豆影院's 2020聽Ed Talks.听We reinvigorated our community engagement work, including launching new place-based partnership projects, nine new outreach and engagement awards, mobilizing actions in solidarity with Black lives, adapting聽research projects, a new institute pairing students and artificial intelligence learning, and a fall semester start with an all faculty and staff retreat dedicated to racial justice. We launched a Doctoral Mentorship Pathway Program for historically underrepresented and marginalized prospective students聽considering doctoral studies and made the GRE test optional for 2021 doctoral admissions in an effort to safeguard educational equity and access during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite its many challenges, this year brought about many opportunities to celebrate our CU 麻豆影院 School of Education community near and far.
We welcomed many new staff and聽faculty. Two of our centers moved to new leadership鈥擩es煤s Rodr铆guez is the聽executive director聽for the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education and three faculty direct the聽leadership team for the CU Engage: the Center for Community-based Learning and Research.听
Rub茅n Donato became an NAEd fellow and was honored with the Alumni Awards鈥� Stearns Award for faculty and staff contributions while alumna Kris Guti茅rrez聽was honored with the George Norlin Award, the highest honor for CU 麻豆影院 alumni. Bill Peneul was named distinguished professor, the highest faculty honor bestowed by the University of Colorado, and Terrenda White earned the Provost鈥檚 Faculty Achievement Award. Several doctoral students earned fellowships to continue their outstanding working, including聽Molly Hamm-Rodriguez鈥檚 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship to conduct her dissertation research in the Dominican Republic; Jose Ortiz鈥檚 American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education fellowship to study the ways Latinx students make sense of their emotional learning; Astrid Sambol铆n Morales鈥櫬燦AEd/Spencer Research Development Award to continue highlighting Puerto Rican mothers鈥� agency, resistance, and resiliency as they navigate the mainland school systems after聽unnatural disasters; and more.
Though some of our favorite traditions took on creative, distanced modalities, we were grateful to celebrate聽outstanding graduates, scholarship recipients and supporters, and all our amazing students and 2020 graduates.听
It's been a strange year and聽a challenging time, and yet we look back with gratitude and聽fondness for all we have overcome and all there is yet to look forward to in聽the future.