More than a century ago, the Oneonta Normal School was established for the purpose of training teachers and expanding public education. SUNY Oneonta’s long-running educator preparation programs have had the distinction of being continuously accredited since 2000, and today, reached an important milestone, earning accreditation from a new accreditor, the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP).
The accreditation applies to all 25 of SUNY Oneonta’s educator preparation programs, including bachelor’s, master’s, and advanced certificate programs. The university is one of 100 institutions and providers in the United States to earn AAQEP accreditation.
This recognition is the culmination of several years of preparations, including a 125-page self-study containing evidence of the reliability and validity of assessments as well as an on-campus site review in April, wherein faculty, students, alumni and external partners were interviewed. AAQEP’s final evaluation report highlighted the strength of SUNY Oneonta’s education faculty, partnerships with area schools, and overall student/alumni preparedness for their professional roles.
“This is a day for celebration,” said Dr. Mark Davies, dean of SUNY Oneonta’s School of Education, Human Ecology, and Sports Studies. “SUNY Oneonta has more than 130 years of practice training excellent teachers, as education was our first program and remains one of our largest. AAQEP accreditation brings validation of the quality of our programs and also represents an expectation to sustain and further improve our programs, which is a commitment we heartily endorse and are eager to undertake.”
An Emphasis on Practical Experience
Founded in 2017, the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation promotes and recognizes quality educator preparation that strengthens the education profession’s ability to serve all students, schools, and communities, and to do so equitably. AAQEP is nationally recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
“Accreditation by AAQEP indicates that our 25 educator preparation programs have been carefully examined by our peers and meet the high standards of the national accrediting body,” Davies explained. “Our site review team confirmed through examining evidence and interviews that our students are well prepared as professionals when they graduate from our programs.”
With an emphasis on practical experience, SUNY Oneonta’s education programs prepare future teachers and school counselors to meet the demands of New York state’s rigorous certification process. The university has collaborative partnerships with regional school districts that provide students enrolled in educator preparation programs with on-site, hands-on teaching and learning opportunities.
Thanks to agreements with rural schools near Oneonta, SUNY Oneonta preservice teachers, as part of their methods block courses, are placed in elementary school classrooms and collaborate with teachers using a place-based, culturally relevant curricular approach to the content. A residency program in partnership with the Oneonta City School District allows pre-service teachers to apply and, if accepted, spend their methods block and student teaching semesters in the school district.
Quality and Availability
In addition to formal field experience in area schools, pre-service teachers have many opportunities to practice their teaching strategies, including service-learning activities and leading workshops for area middle school students during the Catskill Area School Study Council’s fall enrichment seminar series. A capstone student teaching experience in both a middle school and high school setting prepares graduates to teach successfully in grades 7–12.
Many alumni from SUNY Oneonta undergraduate programs return to complete their graduate work in literacy, educational technology, special education or school counseling. In meetings with graduate students, the AAQEP site review team noted that the quality and availability of the graduate faculty was a recurring theme.
Education faculty and staff work together to prepare students for the challenges and rewards of serving in a professional role at all levels of education, from birth to Grade 12. The newly re-accredited programs include 13 bachelor’s programs leading to initial teacher certification at the elementary or secondary level; six master’s programs that fulfill a New York State requirement of an advanced degree for professional teacher certification (with the option of initial certification in special education, literacy, or educational technology); four master’s programs that lead to initial certification in the fields of special education and school counseling; and two advanced certificate programs – one in bilingual education as a certificate extension, and the other in school counseling in fulfillment of the 60 semester-hour credits required for professional certification in that field.
All of the undergraduate programs are offered on the SUNY Oneonta campus, with the exception of an innovative pathway program with Mohawk Valley Community College, where classes are taught on MVCC’s Utica campus and students are dually enrolled in MVCC’s Childhood Education A.S. degree program and SUNY Oneonta’s Childhood Education (1-6) B.S. degree program. Upon completion of the bachelor’s degree, students are automatically accepted into one of SUNY Oneonta’s M.S.Ed. programs. The master’s degree and certificate programs are offered in a range of modalities, from fully in person on the SUNY Oneonta campus to fully online.