Tufts' Department of Education has put in motion a plan to offer an undergraduate minor in education in response to a surge of undergraduates interested in pursuing a teaching degree.
The education department voted unanimously at a department meeting on Monday in favor of offering an undergraduate minor in education. It now awaits the approval of the School of Arts and Sciences, according to Associate Professor and Department of Education Chair Bárbara Brizuela.
In the interim,
the student group Tufts Education Society (TES) formed this year to address the growing education interest among students and ensure that there is an undergraduate voice for education.
If the measure is approved, the department hopes to allow students to pursue the minor as early as this spring, according to Brizuela.
"It's now out of our hands," Brizuela said. "I think it's possible that sophomores and juniors could still be eligible for the minor, given the timing and when the courses are offered. That's my hope."
The majority of courses offered by education faculty are graduate−level. A noticeable increase in undergraduate participation in these classes over the past several years contributed heavily to the department considering forming the minor, according to Education Lecturer Steven Cohen, who is also the faculty sponsor for TES.
Some education classes that were previously filled entirely with graduate students are now attracting a large undergraduate population, he said.
"Now we have enough undergraduates to have complete undergraduate sections of those classes," Cohen said.
Composed of six graduate programs and 14 faculty members, the department is relatively small, according to Brizuela. The department's commitment to these programs and its need to advise undergraduates in the minor means that it will not be offering new classes for the minor yet, she said.
"We're working with existing classes; none of them are new," she said.
Still, she said the department may consider adding new courses for the minor in the future.
The School of Engineering voted last fall to offer an Engineering Education minor, administered through the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach, according to Brizuela. Although the department was heavily involved in developing this minor, it highlighted the lack of one within the School of Arts and Sciences, she said.
"That was a reality check for us," Brizuela said. "The School of Engineering has an education minor and we don't."
Brizuela said the education minor for the School of Arts and Sciences will be interdisciplinary. She hopes this will attract students from various majors.
"I think it's great pairing a minor in education and a major in another discipline," Brizuela said. "What we're hoping is that we can capture students who are thinking about going into education in the future."
Cohen attributed the lack of an education major or minor in the past to the liberal arts nature of the university.
"Very few NESCAC schools have education majors," Cohen said. "Most liberal arts [schools] have seen education as vocational rather than liberal arts."
A minor, though, would fit into Tufts' current system, he said. "I think it's more practical, both taking into account the size of the educational department and the goals of Tufts," Cohen said.
Undergraduate participation in the department's current courses reflects a high demand for an undergraduate teaching degree.
During course registration last spring, Brizuela said that some of the graduate classes filled with undergraduates before the graduate students even had a chance to register.
"We had a good measure of the fact that there were undergraduates who were interested," Brizuela said.
The revamping of the American Studies major to include an education cluster also contributed to a growth of undergraduates in education classes, according to Cohen.
"That has helped us by getting more students interested in education because of that major," Cohen said.
Junior Ryan Clapp, co−director of TES, said that after several preliminary meetings held about the creation of the group last year, he realized how much interest existed among undergraduates for education at Tufts.
"Most people still don't know we have a Department of Education because it's focused on the graduate students," Clapp said. "We had some focus meetings last year and I was totally overwhelmed by the response."
Sophomore Amy Bean was interested in education and learned of the department through a graduate course.
"I didn't know there was a Department of Education until last year," Bean said. "I accidentally took a graduate class. It was awesome."
TES aims to host discussion forums and promote networking for job opportunities, according to Clapp. The group will determine a theme each semester on one issue of education and plans to host a monthly event and one large event per semester that focuses on that theme, according to Clapp.
TES held its first event Tuesday with Brooke Haycook, a playwright−activist who works for nonprofit organization Education Trust and put on a one−woman show called "Catalyst." The show, based on interviews with school administrators and students, demonstrated how the structures of schools have a major impact on education, Clapp said.
"It's really powerful and it's a really good vehicle to have follow−up discussions," Clapp said of the show.
Brizuela said she hopes the group will be able to reach a broad audience of undergraduates at Tufts, especially students of other disciplines interested in education.
"I'm very excited that the group was formed and I'm hoping that we can collaborate," Brizuela said.
Clapp said that the group is not focused on pushing to develop an education major at Tufts. Instead, he hopes the club will act as a link between the students and department.
Still, the group would not be opposed to the major, he said. "That would come from an ongoing discussion with the faculty," Clapp said.
For now, the focus of the department will remain on the development of the minor. "It just seemed like all the pieces were in place. It seemed like everything is ready to set things in motion," Brizuela said.
