Fall 2024

Greetings from the Chair

Tom Shields headshot As we head into the holiday season, it is my pleasure to provide you with updates on what has been happening in Graduate Education over the past several months.

I start by acknowledging the change and upheaval in politics over the past year. I have been reading Prophet Song, a book that fits with the times. This book, which won the 2023 Booker Prize, details how a family copes with the uncertainties and incertitude of changing policies and politics in their country. The central character, Elish, must hold her family together while she navigates trying to find her husband, a leader in the teacher’s union, who has been taken away by the government. The novel provides a compelling portrait of the need for community engagement in a time of change.

This edition of the newsletter provides a glimpse into how the University of Richmond’s Graduate Education faculty and staff are supporting and engaging private and public school systems in the Richmond metro-region. Below is a summary but I encourage you to read the newsletter:

  • We continue to work with local school systems on the issue of provisional licensed teachers. Our efforts, supported by the REB Foundation, has allowed the Provisional License Support (PLuS) program to produce great results in coaching provisional licensed teachers and offering them a pathway to licensure.
  • This past year, Partners in the Arts celebrated its 30th year of providing world-class arts integrated learning to local school systems.
  • We are still glowing after the announcement that Travis Dodds, a graduate of our Teacher Licensure Program and MEd in Curriculum & Instruction, was awarded the Milken Educator Award. In addition, Lat Peak, a Master of Teaching student, is part of Collegiate School’s Fellow’s Program, a prestigious one-year residency program.
  • The Center for Leadership in Education has expanded the school districts involved in the Next Generation Leadership Academy (NGLA), a leadership development program for aspiring local school leaders that has been in existence for nearly 20 years.
  • I was part of a large team of experts, advocates and academics who worked on a project using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) maps to detail the pervasive relationship between housing and school segregation. We were assisted by Dr. Kyle Redican, Director of the Spatial Analysis Lab, and Michelle Quach, a University of Richmond senior, in the creation of these maps. We held an event on campus in October where we released the report, Can We Learn and Live Together 2.0: Housing & School Segregation in the Richmond Region.

As detailed in Prophet Song, we need individuals who are willing to engage in public leadership — just like what our local teachers and school leaders do every day. If you know anyone who wants to be an educator or a school leader, please have them reach out to me. We are always looking to welcome new Spider educators!

Have a great end to the semester and happy holidays!

Best—
Tom
Tom Shields signature
Tom J. Shields, Ph.D.
Graduate Education Chair