Tennessee Tech’s School of Education and Human Sciences received good results from its recently completed Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation accreditation.
Tennessee Tech School of Education and Human Sciences Dean Lisa Zagumny said the accreditation process occurs every seven years and uses an evidence-based review to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. Zagumny said the latest review found Tennessee Tech has demonstrated innovation by offering courses both in person and online, while faculty incorporate the most up-to-date, research-based practices in preparing future educators.
“It really highlighted the great things that our faculty are doing in order to best prepare our candidates for the day that they will be a teacher in the classroom,” Zagumny said. “One of our other strengths is our relationships with our primary partners, both with Putnam County Schools and White County Schools.”
Zagumny said it is important to understand how Tech can best meet the needs of Putnam and White County Schools, as they are the ones that hire teachers who graduate from Tech. Many universities claim they have a good education program, but Zagumny said this accreditation shows that Tennessee Tech has the data to back it up.
“It’s exciting because I know the great work that we’re doing,” Zagumny said. “This helps us to demonstrate that to our stakeholders, to our accrediting agency, to the State Department, to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, to the families in Tennessee. So I think it’s very exciting because, again, I work closely with all of our folks, so I know the great things they’re doing. This just helps us to demonstrate that to a much wider audience who are really impacted by the things that we do every day.”
Zagumny said completing the accreditation process is time-consuming and took about a year and a half to complete. Zagumny said disposition review processes are the lone area where the accreditation is calling for improvements.
“We do not have a tool that captures that systematically across our advanced programs,” Zagumny said. “So that’s one of the things we need to work on. And we knew we needed to work on it because those programs are so different, and we were looking at different things. But now that we’ve had an opportunity to get some feedback from CAEP, that’s something that we can really work on and create a better tool.”
Zagumny said she is working with the director of assessment to find a disposition review process that can best capture all of the program.