A Message from Dean James Wolfinger
Welcome to the 2020 Annual Report for the College of Education at Illinois State.
This has certainly been a remarkable year. The College of Education at Illinois State University, like the rest of the world, is in the midst of unique and trying times. I hear over and over again how proud people are of our college, where our faculty, staff, students, and alumni—like all great educators— confront the challenges of the day and make the most of a difficult situation. Our Redbirds keep teaching, learning, and achieving at all levels. As you read through this report, you will see the incredible strength of the College of Education.
With an alumni base of more than 60,000 educators throughout all 50 U.S. states and in 68 countries worldwide, Illinois State is a leader in the field of education. Within Illinois, almost one in six teachers are alumni of the University.
We continue to work at the local, state, and national levels to recruit and prepare the highest quality educators and administrators. The College of Education is working tirelessly to impact the national teacher shortage by creating new pipeline programs, committing to addressing diversity in the educator workforce, increasing our scholarship support, and continuing strong teaching and scholarship.
Our enrollment remains strong and steady and our students continue to be the college’s top priority. In fact, we significantly increased our scholarship support this past year by $84,000. Student performance remains strong as our students score well above the state and national averages on the edTPA, signifying our commitment to quality instruction and great students.
Graduate program enrollment rose by over seven percent, and we jumped nine spots to be one of the top 100 best graduate schools for education, according to U.S. News & World Report.
Our faculty continue to be a point of pride as they published 142 articles and books and delivered 216 presentations around the United States and the world. Our centers, often working with faculty, collectively received almost $14 million in external grants. That equates to nearly half of the total external funding dollars at the University.
We are proud that our alumni continue to excel in their schools as we remain first among Midwestern institutions for the number of Board Certified teachers. Also, data from the Partnership for Educator Preparation (PEP) and the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) shows that our alumni consistently perform at a high level in the classroom.
As faculty, staff, alumni, and students in the College of Education work together, we will continue to prepare educators who are ready to meet the challenges ahead and excel in any environment. We are extremely thankful for our donors, whose generous gifts have helped provide student scholarship support, new curricular opportunities, and upgraded classroom environments.
We hope you enjoy learning more about the progress of the college’s efforts to provide premier programs that further cement Illinois State’s
reputation as the leader in educator preparation.
Additional Content
Illinois State's College of Education is fighting against the trend of declining teacher education enrollment. The growing shortfall is well documented. The Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., reports that the shortage of teachers nationwide from preschool through high school worsened from 64,000 in the 2015-2016 academic year to 110,000 just two years later. The agency projects the shortfall will reach at least 200,000 by 2025.
For several years, the College of Education has prioritized the redesign of classrooms and computer labs to reflect the flexible learning needs of aspiring educators and their future students. Areas that were once used for storage have been converted to classroom spaces with several interactive monitors that can be controlled individually or together through a single source.
Pre-service teachers are able to utilize a new simulated classroom environment to speak with avatars using Illinois State's Virtual Nest. Avatars serve as students, parents, or educators in a simulated classroom or conference environment. Each avatar possesses an extensive back story and is controlled in real-time by an actor behind the scenes.