Teachers College, Columbia University, will hold formal ceremonies on January 31st to inaugurate Susan H. Fuhrman as its 10th president. Dr. Fuhrman, a noted education researcher who was an early analyst of the state education standards movement, is a TC alumna who became the College's president in August 2006. She had previously served for more than a decade as Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

The inauguration ceremony will take place in The Riverside Church, located 590 Riverside Drive, on Wednesday January 31st, beginning at 2:00 p.m. Members of the press are invited -- though seating is limited -- and should visit www.tc.edu/inauguration for additional details.

The inauguration will be attended by hundreds of representatives from colleges and universities across the nation and from around the world.  Dr. Fuhrman will be welcomed by a group of speakers that includes New York City Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein; New York State Education Commissioner Richard Mills, who was a classmate of Dr. Fuhrman's at Teachers College during the 1970s; University of Miami President Donna Shalala, who was Dr. Fuhrman's thesis advisor at Teachers College before becoming U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services during the Clinton Administration; and Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation and former President of the University of Pennsylvania. Edmund W. Gordon, Teachers College's Richard March Hoe Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Education, who will present Dr. Fuhrman to the College's Board of Trustees, and Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University, will also deliver remarks.

"A presidential inauguration is a major occasion in the life of an academic institution," said Margaret Crocco, Professor of Social Studies Education. "The pomp and festivity are fun, but the event is also a celebration of ideas and values, and of the energy and redoubled commitment that a new president brings to the table. We're entering a new era, but we're also affirming the things we have always stood for: excellence in education and research, a commitment to helping poor and disadvantaged students, and a focus on education in all areas as the best means for sustaining and improving a democratic society." Crocco and Joseph Brosnan, Vice President for Development and External Affairs, co-Chaired a 14-member inauguration planning committee that represented faculty and faculty emeriti, students, union and non-union staff, and alumni.

Other speakers will include Teachers College Board Co-Chairs John C. Hyland and William D. Rueckert; Lambros Comitas, Gardner Cowles Professor of Anthropology and Education (representing the Teachers College faculty); Connie McQueen, Chair, Union Executive Committee and Senior Loan Counselor in the College's Office of Financial Aid (representing union employees); Albert Cousins, President of the Teachers College Student Senate; and Andre McKenzie, President of the College's Alumni Council.

Dr. Fuhrman herself will deliver a keynote address in which she will review Teachers College's history and the challenges facing the College in the future.

On the previous day -- Tuesday, January 30th -- Dr. Fuhrman will chair an academic program themed "Living the Legacy," which will focus on models for effective educational research and ways of translating it into policy and practice. The program will be held at TC's new Cowin Center and will run from 1:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m., with a reception following. This event is open to the media as well, again, on a limited basis.)

Lee Shulman, Director of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, will deliver opening remarks. He will be followed by two panels of speakers that will include Ellen Lagemann, former Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, past President of the Spencer Foundation and the National Academy of Education and currently the Charles Warren Professor of the History of American Education at Harvard University; Edmund Gordon, TC's Richard March Hoe Professor Emeritus of Psychology; Sharon Lynn Kagan, Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood Education at TC and Co-Director of the National Center for Children and Families; and Professor Emerita Patricia Albjerg Graham, at Harvard Graduate School of Education, former Director of the National Institute of Education and President of the Spencer Foundation, the nation's leading funder of educational research.

TC faculty members Aaron Pallas, Professor of Sociology and Education, and Lucy Calkins, Robinson Professor of English Education, will serve as moderators. 

The Teachers College Inauguration Committee is co-chaired by Margaret Crocco, Professor of Social Studies and Education, and Joseph Brosnan, Vice President, Development and External Affairs. Its members are Marion Boultbee, Director, International Services; Albert Cousins, President, Teachers College Student Senate; Scott Fahey, Assistant to the President and Secretary of the College; Celia Genishi, Professor of Education; Jane Herzog, Member, Teachers College Alumni Council;  John C. Hyland, Co-Chair, Teachers College Board of Trustees; Joe Levine, Executive Director, External Affairs; Connie McQueen, Chair, Union Executive Committes (UEC) and Senior Loan Counselor, Office of Financial Aid (Union); Gary Natriello, Professor of Sociology and Education and Director, Gottesman Libraries; Requel Russell-George, Assistant Director, Gifts and Records; Frank Smith, Professor of Education Emeritus; Erica Walker, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education; Sue Ann Weinberg, Member, Teachers College Board of Trustees. The committee is staffed by Jerima DeWese, Executive Administrator, Development and External Affairs; Laurie Dorf, Executive Director, Development Programs; and Karen Schnur, Director of Events Planning.

Published Thursday, Dec. 14, 2006