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Susan Fuhrman will Lead Teachers College for a Second Term
Board re-signs "a winner" who has sparked new academic developments while building partnerships in New York and abroad
“We know that we picked a winner when we offered Susan the presidency five-and-a-half years ago, and we are very happy to stay with a winner,” said William Rueckert, Co-Chair, with Jack Hyland, of the Teachers College Board of Trustees, in announcing the decision.
Fuhrman, a Teachers College alumna and New York City native, also is the current President of the National Academy of Education (NAEd) and founding director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), the nation’s first federally funded education policy center. She became President of Teachers College – and the first woman to hold the job -- in spring 2006 after serving as Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I’m thrilled to be leading the nation’s oldest, largest and best graduate school of education at a moment when the importance of education itself has been recognized and affirmed on the national and global stage,” Fuhrman said. “I’m honored to receive this vote of confidence from our Board, and excited about the contributions that TC’s community of scholars and alumni are making to the city, the nation and the world.”
Under Fuhrman’s leadership, Teachers College has:
- Grown its enrollment year by year to a modern era high of more than 5,000 students, while also increasing yield, selectivity and diversity (with more international students and students of color);
- Nearly doubled financial aid dollars to students;
- Bolstered fundraising, with this year’s total up 30 percent from the previous year, on pace to reach an all-time one-year high;
- Launched a new public Teachers College Community School, serving children in Harlem’s School District and anchoring a larger consortium of Teachers College Partnership Schools where the College working with school-based educators to improve student outcomes. Development of both the school and the Partnership have been spearheaded by TC’s Office of School and Community Partnerships, created by Fuhrman in 2007;
- Created new international partnerships with governments and education institutions in China, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Iceland, India, Jordan, Thailand, Turkey and other nations. Much of this work has been led by the College’s Office of International Affairs, also created by Fuhrman in 2007;
- Undertaken a series of external and internal reviews of all academic programs, aimed at identifying focal points for interdisciplinary collaborations by faculty and students. The effort has given rise to a new academic department, Education Policy and Social Analysis, and several new faculty-driven projects and programs, including the nation’s first master’s degree program in Diabetes Education and Management, and a social studies curriculum focused on the national debt, which will be deployed to high schools across the nation. These and other efforts were initially backed by a new internal fund that seeds cross-disciplinary faculty collaborations; and
- Revitalized TC’s Institute for Urban and Minority Education – for many years, the College’s most visible presence in Harlem – with the appointment of a new director, Ernest Morrell, a nationally recognized authority on literacy, critical pedagogy, cultural studies, urban education and ethnic studies.
Published Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011
