|
 |
Nanette Shaw
In a move that will add scholarly perspective to one of the most basic yet volatile issues of our times, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York has announced the establishment of a Ph.D. Program in Urban Education. The program is designed to prepare leaders in educational research and policy analysis who have a broad understanding of the complexities facing urban education. The new program has been approved by the CUNY Board of Trustees and the New York State Education Department. The first cadre of students will begin in the fall of 2001 and applications are currently being considered. Applications received by February 15, 2001, will be given first consideration. Professor Jay Lemke will be the new program’s founding Executive Officer. Complete information can be found on the program’s website at http://web.gc.cuny.edu/urbaneducation "The new program will offer a unique focus on the intersection of two principal research agendas: (1) curriculum and instruction in urban schools, and (2) analysis within a broad social, political, and economic context of the policies that shape curriculum and instruction." said Professor Lemke. "In order to investigate urban education as a social and cultural process, the program will integrate a wide range of specialist disciplines available at The Graduate Center." Students will be able to draw on elective courses and research faculty in such relevant disciplines as history, philosophy, developmental and social psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and political science, as well as expertise in the humanities, mathematics and computer science, and the natural sciences, when appropriate to their interests. The Urban Education program will seek the guidance of city school leaders regarding current educational needs and share with them the latest research on best practice. It will focus on many of the critical challenges of urban education, with an aim toward supporting improvements in urban students’ literacy, mathematical achievement, and critical reasoning across the curriculum. Teacher education and systemic reform, teaching to higher standards for all students, new instructional technologies, language and culture issues, including the needs of English language learners, and connecting urban students with urban educational resources will all be areas of interest and inquiry. The doctoral students will do fieldwork study in urban schools and internships in leadership and policy-making settings. The program will develop strong interrelationships with its city and CUNY-wide constituencies. Senior New York City education leaders will participate as regular seminar and symposium speakers, and the program will seek to place doctoral students as interns in superintendents’ offices, district and central administrative offices, and with the education advisory staff of elected officials in the city and in Albany. Within CUNY, doctoral students will participate as graduate teaching fellows in the teacher education programs of the CUNY colleges, bringing their knowledge of the latest research findings and policy directions. The combined experience of the full Urban Education doctoral faculty will be made available to each campus as part of the processes of curriculum renewal and validation and ongoing staff development, helping to insure the highest standards for all of CUNY’s teacher education programs. Professor Lemke’s own research interests include literacy education, new educational technologies, science education, discourse linguistics, and semiotics of education. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago and he is a former National Science Foundation Fellow at that school’s Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies. In addition to The Graduate Center, he is also on the faculty of the School of Education at Brooklyn College. His books include Textual Politics: Discourse and Social Dynamics (Taylor and Francis, 1995) and Talking Science: Language Learning, and Values (Ablex Publishing, 1990). Other founding faculty members include: Philip Anderson, (The Graduate Center and Queens College), Humanities and education Stanley Aronowitz, (The Graduate Center), Sociology of education Stephen Brier, (The Graduate Center), U.S. social history, new media technologies Stephan Brumberg, (The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College), History of urban education Colette Daiute, (The Graduate Center), Literacy and education Michelle Fine, (The Graduate Center), Education and social justice Thomas Kessner, (The Graduate Center), Urban history Joe Kincheloe, (The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College), Critical curriculum studies Ravi Kulkarni, (The Graduate Center and Queens College), Mathematics and education Nicholas Michelli, (The Graduate Center), Teacher education policy Sondra Perl, (The Graduate Center and Lehman College), Writing and literacy David Seeley, (The Graduate Center and College of Staten Island), Education policy analysis Michael Sobel, (The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College), Science and education Lynne Weikart, (The Graduate Center and Baruch College), Education finance and policy Ana Celia Zentella, (The Graduate Center and Hunter College), Culture and bilingualism The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York, the largest urban university in the U.S. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City. Established in 1961, The Graduate Center has grown to an enrollment of nearly 4,000 students in 32 doctoral programs and seven master's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The Graduate Center also houses 28 research centers and institutes and administers the CUNY Baccalaureate Program. According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast. Further information on The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its Web site at: www.gc.cuny.edu. |