On Monday and Tuesday, as part of the School of Education accreditation process, Bonaventure hosted National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) visitors.
The visitors were higher education representatives, here to ensure the education department is up to NCATE standards. This has been the third accreditation visit since 2003.
René E. Hauser, PhD., accreditation coordinator, said the visit is only a part of the accreditation process.
“We worked very hard for three years prior to the visit providing documentation that each of our programs in the school of education meets professional standards set by their respective professional associations,” Hauser said.
Both undergraduate and graduate programs have outside reviewers come to ensure that the programs meet NCATE standards, according to Hauser.
“We need to document that as a unit, the school of education also meets the six NCATE standards,” Hauser said. “Thousands of pages of evidence are presented to make our case for accreditation.”
According to the NCATE website, the six standards are candidate knowledge; assessment system evaluation; field experience and clinical practice; diversity; faculty qualification performance, and development; and unit governance and resources.
The higher education representatives visited local schools to see how Bonas set up field experiences, which are required for education students in the graduate and undergraduate programs.
Hauser said the visitors met with current students, alumni, full time and adjunct faculty and administrators on both the main Olean Campus and at the Buffalo Center.
“They met with members of the SBU community who support school of education students and faculty in areas outside of the school of education, such as Clare College, arts and sciences, human resources, student life and technology services,”
NCATE writes a report about how the school reaches their standards. That report gets sent to the NCATE report to review, Hauser said.
“We received some informal feedback that was very positive. The visitors were very impressed with the students in the school of education as well as the dedication and hard work of the faculty and staff,” Hauser said.
The board will meet in April to give its decision on how well Bonas reached NCATE standards.
fieldsbj14@bonaventure.edu
