College of Education named one of top 15 best values in the nation
Kim Chaudoin | 615.966.6494 |
Lipscomb University’s College of Education has been ranked 15th in the nation on the National Council on Teacher Quality’s Top 25 Best Value rating of colleges of education across the United States.
Lipscomb was one of two Tennessee universities to make the list, which also included Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, the University of California-Los Angeles, the College of William and Mary, the University of Houston and Texas A&M University.
“Being included on the Best Values list is recognition of the effort we invest in producing great teachers and doing it at a reasonable cost to those students,” said Deborah Boyd, interim dean of the College of Education. “We have a high-quality faculty, many of whom have experience in the field, who deliver a rigorous academic experience to prepare and equip our students with the tools to step into the classroom ready to go on day one.”
The NCTQ rating is the first time a national education policy organization has conducted a comprehensive measure of quality that also factors in affordability, average teacher salary in each state and the ability to prepare future teachers for the realities of the classroom.
Boyd said that the Lipscomb College of Education works to make the cost of pursuing an undergraduate, graduate or doctoral degree in education affordable.
“Teachers give back to the community every day on the job,” said Boyd. “We want to give back to them by offering significant scholarships to current educators and administrators. We also have scholarship programs for those who want to pursue a teaching career.”
Among the scholarships offered at Lipscomb’s College of Education are:
An In-Service Scholarship for full-time teachers, teacher assistants and/or administrators who enroll in the on-campus graduate education program. This is a 20 percent scholarship for all Doctor of Education and Education Specialist level courses and a 26 percent scholarship for all Master of Education courses.
An alumni scholarship, which is a 20 percent scholarship toward graduate education courses.
The Cultural Diversity Teacher Training Scholarship is a need-based scholarship for students from a traditionally under-represented group who are interested in an initial teaching license.
The Maxine D. Whittle Scholarship Fund is a need-based scholarship awarded to an undergraduate student majoring in special needs education or a graduate student working towards a master’s degree in special education or reading.
This is the latest recognition for Lipscomb’s College of Education. The college’s secondary teacher preparation program shares the No. 1 ranking in the nation by the National Council on Teacher Quality in its 2014 Teacher Prep Review. The college’s graduate program in the elementary grades was named No. 14 in the nation. In 2014, for the fourth year in a row, the College of Education was recognized by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission as one of the most effective teacher preparation programs in the state, listed among only five programs in the state. Lipscomb was also recognized as one of the two largest teacher preparation programs among all private universities in the state.
The National Council on Teacher Quality is a non-partisan research and policy group committed to restructuring the teaching profession based on the belief that all children deserve effective teachers.
For more information about Lipscomb’s College of Education, visit education.lipscomb.edu.