Experiences Working with Diverse Faculty

Columbia College Chicago’s teacher candidates have many and ongoing opportunities to interact with professional educators, faculty from other units, and school faculty from diverse ethnic, racial, and gender groups.  Table 4.14 provides evidence of the extent of diversity of full- and part-time faculty within the professional education unit.

Teacher candidates were placed in  34 public schools during the 2007-2008 school year.  The student and teacher compositions show that the candidates were also able to interact with diverse populations at their school sites.  In a few cases, candidates were placed in private schools.  While report cards such as those provided by the State are not available for such schools, their student and teacher populations were diverse

Table 4.16 provides evidence of the professional knowledge and evidence of faculty’s P-12 teaching experiences in diverse settings, which contribute to the preparation of teacher candidates in both professional education coursework and field experiences.  Information on full- and part-time faculty and field experience supervisors is found in tables 5.2 and 5.3. 

All full-time professional education faculty members have extensive experience working with P – 12 diverse populations, as indicated in Table 4.15.

As indicated earlier in Table 4.14, faculty and staff at the College come from diverse racial/ethnic groups.  The Provost repeatedly points to the importance of the College’s efforts in recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty.

At the professional education unit level, efforts are ongoing to maintain faculty and staff diversity.  These efforts have been largely successful in terms of racial/ethnic diversity, but not in terms of gender diversity.