2006: The Year in Review
The College welcomes a new President, tackles the question of whether and how to revise the nation's education law, takes significant steps to increase financial aid to students, opens a state-of-the-art new conference center, develops a curriculum to deal with civic issues raised by Hurricane Katrina and receives official accreditation for its campus in Japan.
January
TC conducts its 23rd annual Winter Roundtable, the longest running continuing professional education program in the U.S. devoted solely to cultural issues in psychology and education. The fourth annual Social Justice Action Award is presented to Linda James Myers, Ph.D., and the 17th annual Janet E. Helms Award for Mentoring and Scholarship in Psychology and Education is presented to Beverly Greene, Ph.D. (pictured).
Visiting Professor Richard Rothstein delivers the first of a three-part series known as the Tisch Lectures, describing America's historically broad understanding of education and outlining a vision for a "report card" that would track the progress of all 50 states and the federal government toward establishing educational equity.
February
In a TC talk titled "Can NCLB Be Fixed?" Harvard education scholar Richard Elmore describes the nation's education law as "a major political revolution in education," the thrust of which has been to federalize control of the school system.
March
TC's Campaign for Educational Equity makes its Congressional debut at an event hosted by the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The Campaign's Michael Rebell (left) speaks with Kennedy staffer Roberto Rodriguez.
April
TC faculty and students form their usual strong complement among the 14,000 education researchers at the 87th Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in San Francisco. Among those presenting from TC at the meeting-'"themed "Education Research in the Public Interest"-'"are Thomas Bailey and Mariana Alfonso ("Public Policies and Their Effects on Community Colleges and Their Students"); Henry M. Levin ("Forging an Agenda for the Study of Social Class and Schooling"); Kevin Dougherty, Monica Reid and Kenny Nienhusser ("Public Policy and Its Influence on Student Access and Institutional Success"); and Eleanor Drago-Severson ("-'I Got Your Back': Looking Closely at Learner Collaboration and Leadership in Three Settings").
May
Teachers College alumna Susan H. Fuhrman, a native New Yorker who has previously served as Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, is selected as the College's 10th president and the first woman to hold the job.
Christopher Williams, the founder, chairman and CEO of The Williams Capital Group, L.P. and Williams Capital Management, LLC, joins TC's Board of Trustees.
The College holds its first annual Health Disparities Conference and Community Health Fair. Organized by Barbara Wallace, Professor of Health Education; TC's Center for Educational Outreach and Innova-tion; and other TC faculty members, the conference seeks to launch a new generation of health disparities research through a multidisciplinary approach.
TC Trustee Cory Booker is elected Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Booker, a former Rhodes Scholar, joined TC's Board in 2003.
At the College's convocation exercises for the Class of 2006, TC's annual Medal for Distinguished Service is awarded to William G. Bowen, President of the Andrew Mellon Foundation; neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson; K. Patricia Cross, Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley; author and journalist David Halberstam; Frances Hesselbein, founder of the Leader to Leader Institute; Freeman Hrabowski, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; former New Jersey governor, 9/11 Commission Chair and TC alumnus Thomas Kean (above, right); Congressman Charles B. Rangel (above, left); and sex therapist and TC alumna "Dr. Ruth" Westheimer. Robert Rubin, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, receives TC's Cleveland A. Dodge Medal, given to non-educators who render distinguished service to education.
TC says farewell to President Arthur Levine, who left after 12 years to head the Woodrow Wilson National Fellow-
ship Foundation.
June
TC receives a gift of $10 million from the estate of Arthur Zankel, the late financier, philanthropist and Vice Chair of the College's Board of Trustees, which will be used to establish the Arthur Zankel Urban Fellowships-'"50 one-year scholarships of $10,000 each that will be given to both master's and doctoral students with demonstrated financial need. TC renames its Main Hall the Arthur Zankel Building.
TC's National Center for Children and Families convenes leading U.S. policymakers and members of the business community for a four-day event titled "Capitalizing on the Investment: Making the Most of Your Early Care and Education Dollars."
July
The Algebra Project, founded by Civil Rights-era leader and educator Bob Moses to improve math literacy among low-income children of color, holds a series of coaching sessions at Teachers College for third-, sixth- and ninth-grade teachers from Harlem schools. The workshops were arranged by the City school system's Region 10 and Community School District 5 in conjunction with TC.
August
Susan Fuhrman takes office as the College's President, vowing to expand TC's relationship with New York City schools and increase the impact of its research for the benefit of policy-makers and practitioners in the field.
September
Teachers College Press publishes Forever After: New York City Teachers on 9/11, a compendium of writings by New York public school teachers about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
TC opens its new Cowin Conference Center, named for longtime TC Trustee Joyce Cowin, who with her mother, the late Sylvia J. Berger, is the project's lead donor.
New-student orientation at TC includes a forum on educational equity and debates among faculty over what it will take to realize the vision of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court's 1954 decision to desegregate the public schools.
William Baldwin, previously Associate Dean, is named Interim Dean of Teachers College.
Teachers College's Japan Campus receives the official designation of "Foreign Graduate School, Japan Campus," from Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The site, established in 1987 in Suidobashi, Tokyo, is home to a master's degree program that is an extension of the College's TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program in New York.
An amicus brief written by Amy Stuart Wells, Professor of Sociology and Education, and co-signed by TC faculty members Jay Heubert and Michael Rebell, is filed through the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund as part of the U.S. Supreme Court's review of challenges to the efforts of school districts in Kentucky and Washington to achieve racial balance.
October
Three TC employees receive the College's annual Elaine Brantley Award for Community and Civility: Michelle Hill, Academic Secretary for the Curriculum and Teaching Department; Clarence Houston (left), Superintendent in the Department of Facilities; and Rocky Schwarz, Manager of Document Services. Each receives a $400 stipend. The award is sponsored by the President's Office for Diversity and Community.
TC gives its annual Distinguished Alumni Award to Barbara Storper (M.A., Nutrition Education, 1982), creator of the long-running children's ensemble theatre piece, "Foodplay" and other children's shows on nutrition and health; Erick Gordon (M.Ed., Teaching of English, 2005; M.A., Teaching of English, 1996), a TC instructor who is the co-creator of the Teachers College Student Press Initiative; TC Trustee Joyce Cowin (M.A., Curriculum and Teaching, 1952), a founder and supporter of the Heritage School, an arts-themed high school in East Harlem founded by TC faculty, and lead donor for the College's new Cowin Conference Center; and Rachel Moore (M.A., Arts Administration, 1994), Executive Director of the American Ballet Theatre.
R. Thomas Zankel, managing director at Iridian Asset Management, and Julie Abrams Leff, a TC alumna and former public school teacher who is a trustee of Facing History and Ourselves, an organization that engages students in an examination of racism, prejudice and anti-Semitism, join the Teachers College Board of Trustees.
November
The Campaign for Educational Equity hosts its second annual symposium, this time focusing on No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the nation's education law. Newark Mayor and TC Trustee Cory Booker keynotes the event, which presents important new findings on how well the law is working and what areas are ripe for change.
The Web site for the TC Annual Fund introduces blogs by four current students-'"Jessica Cruz, Omari Keeles, Joe King and Sarah Norris-'"about their experiences at the College. All four are receiving some degree of Annual Fund support. The blogs can be viewed at www.tc.edu/supporttc.
December
The Community College Research Center at Teachers College celebrates the publication
of Defending the Community College Agenda, a new book by Thomas Bailey (far right), Professor of Economics and Education, and other researchers at the Center.
The College bids farewell to Fred Schnur, its longtime Vice President for Finance and Administration, who led major improvements in TC's financial health-'"including a credit rating upgrade by Moody's Investor's Service. Morton Grusky, formerly in charge of finance and administration at the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, is subsequently named Interim V.P. for Finance and Administration.
A group of TC faculty members, students, staff and alumni receives a $975,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to develop a multi-disciplinary curriculum and online resource to complement When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, the HBO documentary film directed by Spike Lee about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans.
Published Wednesday, May. 9, 2007
