Woodring College of Education

Mission

Woodring College of Education facilitates life-long learning through exemplary teaching to prepare quality education, health, and human services professionals for democratic citizenship and meaningful careers. As a College that serves the state, nation, and world, we:

  • Construct, transform, and convey knowledge by integrating research, theory, and practice
  • Cultivate student growth through extensive community and school engagement in collaboration with exemplary practicing professionals
  • Act with respect for individual differences, including taking a strengths-based view
  • Develop collaborative partnerships that promote the learning and well-being of individuals, families, and the community
  • Evaluate processes and outcomes to ensure continual program improvements​​​​​

Vision

Woodring College of Education fosters community relationships and a culture of learning that advance knowledge, honor diversities, and promote social justice.

 

 

Guiding Values

  • Justice Oriented Diversity Practices—recognizing historical and contemporary inequalities, we pursue practices that honor diversities and promote social justice to and for equity.
  • High Quality Program—recognizing the importance of quality in all of our academic programs, we affirm the importance of excellence in teaching, and aspire to strengthen innovation, technology, and sustainability to meet current and anticipated needs
  • Robust Internal and external community relationships and partnerships—recognizing the complexity of change, we develop partnerships internally, locally, nationally, and globally to maximize our ability for meaningful impact within communities
  • Research and knowledge creation—recognizing the importance of quality, rigorous academic research and creative activity, we engage in scholarly activity that advances the academic disciplines and illuminates challenges and opportunities​

Funding Priorities

Student Success

  • Student scholarships Increasing the number of scholarships available helps us recruit students who aspire to the highest professional qualities.  We are particularly interested in supporting those students committed to engaging with families and communities as they seek to make a difference in schools, social service agencies and health care systems.
  • Recruitment and Retention Programming
    While the College commitment to increasing student diversity is steadfast, we recognize that additional programming would be instrumental in accomplishing the diversity we seek.  We are particularly interested in programming that helps students, once admitted to the university, to gain traction for admittance and retention in our academic programs.
  • Resource Centers and Institutes  Serving students and faculty, as well as professionals in and around our local communities, our resource centers provide assistance and support for promoting literacy, affirming diversity, exploring technology, and addressing the needs of children with special learning challenges. These include the Center for Education, Equity and Diversity and the Ershig Assistive Technology Resource Center.​

Program Success

  • Family and Community Engaged Teaching (FACET) Preparing a cadre of teachers to work with social service agencies and community leaders to address the complexity of young people’s lives is just one example of how we seek to create and support a culture of innovation for promising projects across the college while also addressing pressing social challenges in partnership with schools and community based organizations.​

Faculty Success

  • Faculty Fellowships/Course Release/Endowed Positions Funds for faculty support are critical for recruiting and retaining the highest quality teachers and  researchers. For example, an endowed faculty position is a universally recognized pinnacle of philanthropy, one of the most influential and meaningful gifts made to an academic institution. Such gifts for faculty support inspire and enable innovation and discovery, launch careers and foster program growth and development.
  • Dean’s Fund for Innovation and Excellence 
    Providing resources to the Dean to spur innovation and excellence enables faculty, staff, and students in the College, for example, to recruit and maintain exemplary faculty, to host professional development activities, to spur our international linkages, and to advance our numerous partnerships with schools and community based organizations.​

Community Success

  • Pathway Programs  Developing and building K-12 to University pathway programs allows us to better reach and provide access to quality educational opportunities to students at all ages and stages of their educational careers.  These pathway programs put special emphasis on supporting students from diverse and lower socio-economic backgrounds and inspire them to purse higher education as well as careers in education and human service professions. Among these are our award-winning Compass 2 Campus, Building Bridges with Migrant Youth, and Maestros Para el Pueblo.
  • Palliative Care Institute Partnering with Northwest Life Passages Coalition and other community agencies and volunteers to transform palliative care in Whatcom County and support our human responses to living and dying. Our goal is to create a healing community by providing a space where people living with serious illnesses or facing the end of life don’t have to be cured to heal. We build on collaborations among those both inside and outside of the medical industry, reclaiming palliative care as a community responsibility.