Bridgewater College’s Teacher Education Program, which received full accreditation from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation in spring 2021, was recognized by CAEP for its commitment to leadership and continuous improvement. Bridgewater’s program was one of 26 providers from 17 states and the United Arab Emirates to receive the 2021 Frank Murray Leadership Recognition for Continuous Improvement.
Recipients of the honor are selected from the educator preparation providers (EPPs) that were granted accreditation by CAEP at the initial level from the previous year, and who had no stipulations or areas for improvement.
“Our Teacher Education Program faculty work tirelessly with their students and community partners to instruct tomorrow’s P-12 educators. The Frank Murray Award is a wonderful validation of the innovation and connection each of our faculty has with their students. Those connections continue to ripple with every new graduating class of teachers,” said Dr. Barbara Long, Dean of the School of Professional Studies.
The recognition is named in honor of Frank Murray, founding president of the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC). Murray also served as chair of the board for TEAC and was an initial member of the CAEP Board of Directors. He was a key advocate for a single set of teacher preparation standards to unify the profession and was instrumental in the merger that created CAEP. He served as the Dean of the College of Education at the University of Delaware from 1979 to 1995.
“Frank Murray was passionate about education preparation, a prominent leader in our profession and an advocate for evidence to improve education. The providers that CAEP is recognizing are committed to continuous improvement and preparing their students to succeed in a diverse range of classrooms after they graduate,” said Karen Symms Gallagher, chair of the CAEP Board of Directors. “CAEP accreditation is a sign of commitment to quality through purposeful use of evidence. The Murray Leadership Recognition recipients should be proud of their accomplishments.”
Providers selected for recognition advance equity and excellence in educator preparation through purposeful use of self-study procedures and evidence-based reporting that assure quality and support continuous improvement to strengthen P-12 learning. These EPPs have a mission driving their continuous improvement inquiry, use assessments that are relevant to the topic being informed and consequential, show the reliability and validity of the evidence provided for accreditation, have quality assurance capacities that inform their knowledge and address questions about relationships in the data. Honorees include small, large, public, private, faith-based and historically minority serving institutions.
“This third class to receive the Murray recognition represents the diversity and innovation that comes with CAEP accreditation,” said CAEP President Chris Koch. “These recipients reflect the creativity that CAEP affords in achieving excellence, by meeting the standards in a variety of ways, for the diverse populations they serve.”
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