2019-2020 Annual Report

Equity at Work!

Welcome to the 2019-2020 Dean’s Report for the Touro Graduate School of Education! Reading this report, you will learn of the many ways the school has navigated unprecedented challenges and addressed unique opportunities resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. I am proud to say, with support and leadership from central administration of Touro College and University System, GSE swiftly pivoted to an online environment for instruction and candidate supports with noted success. In doing so, we preserved our care for the wellbeing of candidates, continuous quality improvement, and educational equity. In fact, as we began responding to the pandemic during the spring 2020 academic term, 93% of graduating candidates reported being satisfied with the overall quality of their programs.

The content of this report is as much a retrospective collection of innovations and successes, as much as it is a celebration. Along with COVID-19, the social conditions of the time also required us to double down on our commitment to Touro College’s mission and Judaic values of social justice, intellectual pursuit, and service to the community. From the work of the Lander Center for Educational Research to instructional programming, you will find that we have governed our priorities by values. For this reason, we are naming this report Equity at Work!

Equity at Work is not only a befitting title for the reasons mentioned above. It also encapsulates the actualization of our motto “Leading and Learning from Praxis: Serving with Compassion.” As an institution of learning, we continually seek to lead by influencing the profession from our lessons learned.  We continually seek to learn from the intersections of theory and practice to inform improvement. Moreover, at the core of it all, the needs of the youth and their school communities served by our programs, through clinical practice, partnerships, and our alumni engagement, anchor our compassion and commitment to equity.

Before closing, I would like to highlight, in brief, some achievements of which we are most proud. Chief among these is our ongoing dedication to continuous quality improvement, resulting in national accreditation by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation  (CAEP). We remain nationally ranked among the top 100 producers of minority completers of master’s level education programs by Diverse Issues in Higher Education in 2020, topping at #35 for all minority groups compositely. Our master’s programs in School Leadership and Special Education rank  #4 and #11 respectively as Best Graduate Schools by GradReports, placing them both in the top 25 in the nation among other institutions whose alumni salaries are highest within the profession. And, for the first time, Touro ranked nationally by U.S. News and World Report for Best Online Graduate Education Program in 2019.

Respectfully,

Jacob Easley II, Ph.D.
Dean