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Spring 2001
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Deborah Stipek
Dean of the School of Education |
The Stanford University School of Education is thriving. I can say that with humility because I am new to SUSE. I arrived only five months ago as the new dean. Before I moved to Stanford, I knew that SUSE had an extremely prominent and productive faculty whose research meets the highest standards of scientific rigor. What I didn’t know is how deeply engaged SUSE faculty and students are in addressing the practical challenges of improving schools and communities. Their research informs teaching, curriculum development, and professional development for practicing teachers, administrators and community leaders. It influences school organization, testing and evaluation, and finance. SUSE faculty are helping frame policy discussions and decisions at the state, national and international levels.
Stanford has a distinguished record of working at the intersection of research and practice. Partnering with UC Berkeley, for example, PACE, Policy Analysis for California Education, has conducted policy analyses for the State of California since 1983. And under the auspices of the Center for Research on the Context of Teaching, SUSE researchers have been studying the effects of educational contexts on adolescents’ learning for 14 years. These and many other projects have earned Stanford a reputation for being relevant and helpful to policy makers and practitioners.
Consistent with their reputation of being on the cutting edge, researchers at SUSE are developing new collaborations which will enhance our ability to address the many challenges we face. In the most recent initiatives, which you will read much more about in future issues of the Stanford Educator, SUSE faculty and students work side-by-side with teachers, administrators, and community leaders. Research questions evolve in part out of the problems of practice in real-life contexts. Practitioners and researchers work together to formulate questions, conduct research, interpret findings, and develop interventions, programs, and policies.
This issue of the Stanford Educator highlights several such collaborations: Jo Boaler’s creative strategies to improve the teaching of mathematics; Guadalupe Valdés’ young interpreters project; and the participation of SUSE faculty and graduates helping Eastside Prep demonstrate that at-risk students, if properly engaged, can be successful.
I am sure you will be as pleased as I am to learn of the dedication and creativity of Stanford University School of Education faculty and students toward improving education and making it more equitable. I am honored to be a member of this extraordinary community of scholars and practitioners – including its distinguished alumni.
I look forward to getting to know many of you in the coming years.
Sincerely,
