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Leading In An Unusual Year
SUPPORTING OUR STUDENTS
“Last spring, my mother lost her job due to the pandemic. She applied for unemployment insurance benefits; however, unexplainably she never received the funds. I have been balancing studying full-time, working full-time, and supporting my mother’s needs (as she is also immunocompromised). I’ve lost my job this summer due to the pandemic and my father is soon to be out of work as well. I am having a hard time figuring out how to continue my studies as well as supporting my family emotionally and financially. I need help financially supporting my family. Otherwise, I may need to take the semester off to work before returning to school.” - Lurie College hardship grant student
When we transitioned to shelter in place in March of 2020, many of our students were directly impacted by income shortages and job losses, which led to food and housing insecurity and concerns about being able to stay in school. Our college immediately took action to address these hardships and raised over $66,000 in gifts from alumni, faculty, staff, and other donors to bolster our student hardship fund. We provided grants to 44 students during the Spring 2020 term and have received over 20 additional requests as we have transitioned into the Fall 2020 term. Help us continue to support our students at sjsu.edu/education/give
ENROLLMENT GROWTH
As a result of our college’s proactive and collective efforts to support our students, our Fall 2020 enrollment has held steady in most of our programs and in some cases it has increased considerably, such as in our Department of Teacher Education, where enrollment doubled from 130 in Summer and Fall 2019 to 258 in Summer and Fall 2020!
“Our department adapted our admissions process to develop a more holistic understanding of our applicants and to encourage more applications from BIPOC (Black, Indigineous, and People of Color) and bilingual candidates.” said Department of Teacher Education Chair Patty Swanson. “Additionally, our Student Success Center helped us recruit diverse candidates from within our university and our region’s high schools and community colleges; we’ve extended our bilingual authorization program from elementary into secondary education; and our faculty and program coordinators have consistently messaged our vision of emancipatory education when meeting with prospective students and applicants. It has been a team effort that has resulted in increased enrollment and, more urgently, to a more diverse incoming class and a robust cohort more than thirty entering bilingual candidates.”
K-12 ONLINE ACADEMY
Anticipating that Fall 2020 would likely bring online learning for many K-12 students, we coordinated an online academy during Summer 2020 to support our credential candidates, alumni, community partners, and the larger education community to strengthen their online teaching skills.
The series consisted of 23 live webinars on 23 topics from 24 presenters from June 15-July 14. The live webinars attracted over 3000 attendees and the recordings have accumulated over 17,000 views from midJune to early-October of 2020. Webinar topics included:
“Synchronous & Asynchronous Tools for Distance Learning” “Developing Classroom Community in Online Spaces” “Techquity- Culturally Responsive Teaching in the 21st Century Classroom”
“It’s important for us as teachers to be thermometers, not thermostats. A thermometer responds to whatever the temperature is, but a thermostat controls it. If we don’t create the culture, our students will.” - Eric Cross, “Techquity” presenter
Visit sjsu.edu/education/k12-academy to access all 23 webinar recordings.
NEW ACADEMIC INITIATIVES
MA, EMANCIPATORY SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
Our new, innovative program is designed for emerging K-12 leaders who wish to engage with emancipatory leadership practices to improve educational opportunities for historically marginalized students. Grounded in a living case study approach, the program bridges theory and practice to provide students with the skills and understandings needed to be transformative school leaders. Learn more about the program at sjsu.edu/edleadership/mesl.
IMPACT SAN JOSÉ FELLOWSHIP
Our new fellowship program supports and develops educators who are driven by their passions for social justice, educational equity, and postively impacting their communities. We selected our first cohort of 11 fellows for the Fall 2020 term and they will each receive $5000 in scholarship funding, mentorship, and more. Each of our fellows has also committed to teaching in a Title I school upon the completion of their credential program. Learn more about the program at sjsu.edu/education/fellows.
STRATEGIC PLAN GRANTS
During the Spring 2020 term, we coordinated a grant proposal process within our college to advance the Lurie College Strategic Plan’s four priority areas - community-engaged, culturally sustaining, interdisciplinary, and holistic - and awarded funding to 6 groups’ projects for the 2020-2021 year:
“Creating an Inclusive Climate: Queering Our Classrooms and Our Campus” “Early Childhood Connections” “Education Leadership Minor” ”Health Development Clinic” ”Interprofessional Education Project” ”Interprofessional Summit”
“The Health Development (HD) Clinic is a community-engaged, multidisciplinary clinic that will offer values-based, culturally sustaining, and trauma-informed care to children, youth, and families,” said Child & Adolescent Development Department faculty Cara Maffini. “The goal of the HD Clinic is to maximize the developmental, behavioral, and familial wellness of those served while providing interprofessional training to future professionals.”
Learn more about each project at bit.ly/lurie-strategic-plan-grants.
ETHNIC STUDIES RESIDENCY
Our new Ethnic Studies Residency Program is a collaboration between San José State University, East Side Union High School District and William C. Overfelt High School. Ethnic Studies helps students connect with their power by highlighting the strengths in their personal, community, and cultural backgrounds.
The Ethnic Studies Residency Program supports teacher candidates and their mentor teachers at Overfelt High School in cultivating the mindsets, knowledge, and skills to design culturally sustaining curriculum for their students and turn their classrooms into spaces of solidarity and liberation.
Our Program Coordinators, Associate Dean Marcos Pizarro, Faculty Associate Dean for Research Mark Felton, and Department of Teacher Education faculty Luis Poza are very excited about the direction and initial outcomes of this partnership:
