Strategic Direction
Our strategic direction is inspired by our history, informed by our vision, mission, and shared commitments, and oriented toward the future. Developed in collaboration with faculty, staff, students, alumni, the Dean’s Advisory Board, and community partners, three overarching goals will guide our work moving forward.
- Objective 1.1: Ensure the COE offers the right balance of degrees and programs (credit and non-credit bearing) that leverage COE distinguishing features and strengthen the College’s short- and long-term sustainability
- Objective 1.2: Ensure COE programs, curricula, and systems are designed to prepare equity-minded, inclusive, and learner centered educators
- Objective 1.3: Support the COE team’s (faculty, staff, field supervisors, and partners) growth in serving learners from varied backgrounds, contexts, and levels of developmental readiness
As reflective educators and learners, we seek to continually examine and enhance our practice. We will use relevant data alongside our shared commitments and professional expertise as we examine the inputs and outcomes of our current programs, partnerships, and educational experiences. We will ensure our programs prepare educators to serve learners across geographic and socioeconomic contexts, including those learners who identify as culturally and linguistically diverse, students of color, LGBTQ+, neuro-atypical, and students with disabilities.
This will involve intentional decision making regarding what programs we offer (degree, non-degree, study abroad, professional development, etc.), the curriculum within those programs, and the organizations with whom we partner. We will examine our current programs, partnerships, and experiences to determine how we can strengthen our practice to further ground our decisions in data from a variety of sources, remove barriers to accessing a highly relevant education that meets the diverse needs of learners, and center the practices that distinguish our offerings as we reimagine opportunities that align with our shared commitments, our expertise, and the needs within our profession and the communities we serve.
We will ensure our team—faculty, staff, field supervisors, and partners—are ready to serve across educational contexts, formats, and models and to support learners from varied backgrounds. This means we must build on our strengths, be forthright about areas for growth, and enact plans for intentional and sustained professional learning. We must understand our own identities and biases and be fully prepared to work with students we have not served historically. As we recruit new members to our team, we will seek to welcome fresh perspectives that stretch our comfort zones and challenge our team in productive and growth-oriented ways. We will seek institutional and organizational partners aligned with our strategic goals and shared commitments.
- Objective 2.1: Build new entry points into the COE
- Objective 2.2: Develop new programming or build access into existing programs that target development of high need P-12 and community-based professionals
- Objective 2.3: Develop funding mechanisms and sources to offset the cost of a BU education for future educators and build additional revenue sources to support the mission of the COE.
- Objective 2.4: Build upon our existing student recruitment and retention approaches
Expanding our impact involves the need to boldly create and innovate so that we may serve new groups of learners in new spaces using new models of education. We will develop inclusive pathways to enable learners to access education while meeting workforce needs such as additional dual-credit opportunities, apprenticeship programs, certificate programs, and future models yet to be imagined. In order to support learners in various stages of development and from diverse backgrounds, we will develop partnerships within and beyond the education community.
In our efforts to serve communities, we acknowledge that meaningful educational experiences can occur in a wide variety of contexts and through many formats. We will expand our College’s impact through the intentional creation of new entry points, customized programs, and strategic partnerships. We will pursue philanthropic support and grant funding to support these initiatives and open access for students.
- Objective 3.1: Leverage expertise and professional reputation in teaching and learning to positively impact educators and community members
- Objective 3.2: Showcase the data, outcomes, and stories of the distinctive features of COE undergraduate and graduate programming
- Objective 3.3: Increase the visibility of the education profession and of our College of Education in the University, the local community, at the state level, and on the national stage
The COE has long been recognized for our relationship centered philosophy and our highly experiential programming. We seek to broaden and deepen our relationships with students, colleagues, partners, and alumni to elevate the profession and the profile of the COE with targeted focus on our learner-centered expertise and the excellence of our faculty on the local, national, and international stage. We will engage local, state, and national policymakers and community leaders to shape the policies, practices, and funding sources that impact P-12 and educator preparation and to raise the visibility of our College. We will leverage opportunities to convey our work in public facing (e.g., practitioner magazines, social media) and academic (e.g., journals) channels for sharing our expertise and documenting our impact.