National education expert Candice McQueen appointed senior vice president
Kim Chaudoin | 615.966.6494 |
Candice McQueen, dean of Lipscomb University’s College of Education since July 2008, has been appointed senior vice president, President L. Randolph Lowry announced today.
As a senior vice president, McQueen is part of the university’s executive leadership team and will oversee the College of Education as well as Lipscomb Academy, a preK-12th grade institution affiliated with the university.
“Dr. McQueen has created one of the top education programs in the country, and she has become a recognized leader in this field,” said Lowry. “She has a level of proven expertise that will continue to impact generations of teachers to come and that will help shape the academy into one of the best in the region. This is a way for Dr. McQueen’s influence, innovation and vision to have a greater impact throughout the institution.”
Under McQueen’s leadership the College of Education’s teacher preparation program was named one of the top four in the nation last year. She also led the College of Education to a 72 percent enrollment growth, added multiple graduate programs, including a doctorate in education, and has become a leader in teacher preparation quality in the state.
“This appointment builds a stronger relationship between our own academy and the College of Education,” said McQueen. “It is a natural fit for the two entities to collaborate to offer the most effective, innovative education possible for both our preK-12 students as well as our undergraduate and graduate students.”
McQueen is known nationally as an expert in education. She was an invited participant in the prestigious Aspen Institute’s Education & Society Program in Washington, D.C., to inform senior congressional staff members on education issues. She was also invited to participate in the America Diploma Project Leadership Meeting in Alexandria, Va., to discuss the work of Lipscomb and the Ayers Institute for Teacher Learning and Innovation in creating Common Core Standards resources and training for all teacher preparation programs in Tennessee. McQueen has also been quoted in Education Week and U.S. News and World Report about the positive results Lipscomb’s College of Education has had on the Tennessee Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Training programs.
Last fall, McQueen was called to testify as an expert before the Tennessee Senate Education Committee on the role of higher education and the topic of assessment under the Common Core Standards due to her extensive experience with implementing the standards statewide and developing resources.
McQueen currently serves in Tennessee’s Educator Leader Cadre for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) Consortium, a 23-state group working to develop national tests for students, based on Common Core. The PARCC tests will be completely online, which is bringing major changes to many school systems throughout the state. She also serves as the liaison for higher education for the State Department of Education’s Common Core State Standards Leadership Council for K-12 and on the Common Core advisory board for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission’s Institutes of Higher Education. McQueen was recently elected to the national board of director’s for the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Preparation.
McQueen, who began her faculty appointment at Lipscomb in 2001, is also the founding director of Lipscomb’s Ayers Institute for Teacher Learning and Innovation that launched in 2012. Prior to her appointment as dean, McQueen served as the undergraduate department chair in education. Before coming to Lipscomb, McQueen taught in both private and public elementary and middle schools in Texas and Nashville, was on faculty at Vanderbilt University and was an assistant instructor and supervisor of student teachers at the University of Texas at Austin. She has won multiple awards for her teaching at both the K-12 and collegiate levels. Her primary research interests are teacher professional development, education reform, leadership, and reading and writing methods. She currently serves on the local boards of the PENCIL Foundation, STARS, SCORE and LEAD Public Schools.
The Clarksville, Tenn., native has a Bachelor of Science degree from Lipscomb University, a Master of Education in school administration from Peabody College, Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. in curriculum studies from the University of Texas.
McQueen will remain in her role as dean of the College of Education while Lipscomb conducts a nationwide search for a new dean for the college, who will report to McQueen.