Is Something Wrong At Uic S College Of Education

UIC professor Therese Quinn lobbed a little bomb at her alma mater, the UIC College of Education, last week.

The Urban Education program has a primary goal of recruiting students who’ve come through city schools and preparing them to go back into those schools as highly qualified teachers and inspiring role models. In Chicago, that means more Latinx and black teachers and especially more males of color.

She also pointed to a drop in students of color in the college’s PhD programs, and the end of a policy of “conditional acceptance” for students who can’t yet meet the state requirements, observing that the only way she herself got into the COE graduate school was through such a conditional admittance. In addition, she charged, the college “has nearly decimated and seems determined to destroy Curriculum Studies,” whose faculty formerly included William Watkins and Bill Ayers.

According to Tatum, it was necessary to “rightsize” PhD cohorts at the college, which “all have fewer students now,” while programs like Curriculum Studies are having to “align with the college’s growth orientation.”