A message from the Leadership Team: Restating our commitments and care for our community

Dear members of the School of Education community, 

We hope your fall semester is off to a good start. With each changing season, we welcome the opportunity to reflect and look ahead.  

As you may be aware, the School of Education has been going through a process of self-reflection and analysis in an effort to work toward improving our sustainability and reinforcing our commitments to diversity, democracy, equity, and justice throughout our teaching, research, and service. This process has included the work of the School of Education budget sustainability committee, of our partners at C-Shift, and as a community. We are proud of the work we have accomplished so far and grateful to those who have contributed to the process. As we have stated before, inclusive and transparent processes will expand our opportunities to build community and uphold our equity and justice mission as a public school of education.  

As the School of Education leadership team, the question that we have been asking in our conversations over the past few months is: what does our commitment to diversity, equity and justice look like in relation to the changes that we are proposing and will be implementing around the school? We have also heard this question being asked from other members of our community. We wanted to share how we are addressing this important question and re-state that our commitment to equity is interwoven throughout the school's mission. We seek your ongoing partnership as we work through these changes.  

We recognize that equity work is the responsibility of all of us in leadership positions and beyond, in agreement with campus-wide work and implementation of the shared equity leadership model. This summer we developed detailed descriptions for all associate dean positions, including explicit tasks associated with supporting our commitments. It will be all of our responsibilities to fulfill our commitment to equity and justice. In terms of accountability, all associate deans will report to me around these commitments, and as dean, I am accountable to the provost around the campus commitments.  

We recognize that climate and culture is what we all collectively create and promote. As members of the leadership team, we are committed to advancing an environment where transparency and accountability are foundational values.  

In recent weeks, we have held meetings to discuss budget sustainability and the future of the school with faculty and staff and offered a separate space for students. We are grateful for your involvement and wise contributions. As we continue to discuss what future changes to make, we commit to listening to all voices across our community. We see you and we recognize that we are all collectively trying to do what is best for our school. Along the way, we honor that members of our community may have different ideas and some disagreements on the best path forward. In fact, we believe we do better when we have constructive discussions and varying perspectives around ideas. Centering the school's mission of equity and justice in these discussions and decisions will require both vision and pragmatism, listening to others and sharing our own perspectives, and willingness to hold curiosity and grace for active thought processing. And we need to be accountable to ourselves and to our colleagues in maintaining an environment where we all can thrive and feel we belong.  

We recognize that everyone in the school needs to be supported, and that support will have different components, from how we recruit and retain students, to how we engage our staff, to how we mentor our faculty and more. We are committed to moving forward with care for all members of our community. 

As we continue this next academic year, feel free to approach us with any questions or suggestions you may have. We appreciate you and look forward to continuing to work together. 

Members of the School of Education leadership team, 

Fernando Rosario-Ortiz, Millie Gort, Joe Polman, Elizabeth Dutro, Grace Maniscalco, and Suzanne Bonomo