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Teacher Education students earn FLC's first-ever master's degrees
Winter 2015-16
Fort Lewis College took a giant leap into the future in January 2012, when the Higher Learning Commission approved FLC's first graduate program: a Master of Arts in Education, Teacher Leadership Option. The first students in the M.A. program and the associated graduate-level Teacher Leadership Certificate program began their studies in Fall 2013.
And this past May, that first cohort of 24 working educators walked across the stage in Whalen Gymnasium as the first-ever students to earn their master's degrees at Fort Lewis College. The next two-year master's cohort began this fall.
“It was exciting to see the first master's degree students in Fort Lewis College's hundred-plus-year existence walk across the stage at graduation,” says FLC President Dene Kay Thomas. “These students represent a successful evolution for FLC as we fulfill the College's mission of preparing graduates for an increasingly complex world.”
A teacher education program is a logical first graduate program for FLC, whose roots in teaching teachers goes back more than 100 years, to 1914, when a “rural teacher training” program was established at what was then known as the Fort Lewis School of Agriculture & Mechanic Arts.
Today the Fort Lewis College Teacher Education Department still plays a vital role in the training of local and regional educators.
“We need teachers with the skills and know-how to make a difference in their classrooms, schools, and communities,” says Richard Fulton, director of the Teacher Education Department. “Now they're able to get those graduate-level skills and know-how right here in the Four Corners.”
The program focuses on the needs of classroom teachers in the region who want to be agents of change for improved student learning in their schools and their districts, as instructional coaches or as leaders of academic learning communities. The program is in a hybrid format, with class meetings in the evening supplemented with online coursework.
“The program is designed for the working educator, so the online component is convenient. But since our campus is nearby, students also get an engaged, personalized, and collaborative experience,” says Fulton. “And because we're based here, we know the context and challenges of the region, and so we can work with the situations and initiatives our students are facing in their particular schools.”