Message from the Dean 
This is my last column. I will be leaving the deanship of the College of Education at TCU at the end of May after eight years. And what a wonderful eight years it has been. Of course the most obvious highlight of this time was the opening of the new Betsy and Steve Palko Hall and the restored Bailey Building within the J. E. and L. E. Mabee Foundation Education Complex. The College of Education now prepares educational professionals in the most beautiful and effective buildings on campus. But the work of the faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends of our college has allowed us to accomplish so much more to help TCU students become better teachers, administrators, and counselors as well as to improve the skills of practicing educators in the Metroplex.
We developed a mission statement and an effective strategic plan based on that mission. We revised our undergraduate programs to make them integrated, blocked, team-taught, and field-based. In Texas, only TCU early childhood students are required to obtain additional certification in either special education or English as a second language. And we will extend that to middle and secondary students. This makes our graduates very valuable and their employment rate stays at 100 percent. They also learn what they need to learn in these programs – our students reached a 100 percent pass rate on Texas examinations and average above 98 percent.
We started the first doctoral program in the College of Education and now have two doctoral programs in leadership and one in science education. In part because of these increases in graduate programs and other advances, we were “promoted” from the School of Education to the College of Education.
We strengthened and then received a generous endowment for the Andrews Institute for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education. We received formal approval for the Center for Urban Education and the Alice S. Neeley Institute for Special Education. We will be able to further strengthen our work in special education through the recent endowment for a new Ann M. Jones Chair of Special Education.
We opened KinderFrogs in 2000, which later earned the prestigious NAEYC accreditation. KinderFrogs and Starpoint, our laboratory schools, become more effective every year. They help us prepare many students at TCU in education as well as many other areas such as health science, physical education, speech, and social work.
Through our membership in the European Teacher Education Network, we increased the international experiences for our students so that this year almost 50 college undergraduates will complete part of their student teaching in international settings in Europe, Mexico, and Canada.
To support all these efforts since 2000, funds provided by our faculty, staff, friends, foundations, and alumni to support the College of Education, Starpoint, and KinderFrogs exceeded $28,000,000.
There is even so much more but I have run out of space – you can see why I think this has been eight terrific years. I have been thrilled to serve as the last dean of the School of Education and the first dean of the College of Education at Texas Christian University. I consider these the very best years of my professional career.
Sam Deitz, Dean
