A Message From Dean Dass
December 11, 2024 | Hannah Buchanan
College of Education and Psychology Fall 2024 Newsletter
Dean's Message
Greetings colleagues, friends and supporters of the College of Education and Psychology,
Our fall semester is ending this week, and the end of 2024 calendar year is fast approaching.
Around this time, we start getting into the “holiday mood” and prepare for a break
from the hustle and bustle of academic life. This is also a time of thanksgiving for
the blessings in our lives, and I am extremely grateful for the blessings in our college
this semester.
As I look back on this fall semester, I want to share some of these blessings with you.
We welcomed one new faculty member in the Department of Psychology and Counseling, one new faculty member in the School of Education and a new college assessment coordinator in the dean’s office. They are all being introduced in this newsletter.
Our clinical psychology PhD program received accreditation from the American Psychological Association. Congratulations to Dr. Dennis Combs and the clinical psychology faculty team who worked extremely hard in the very labor intensive and time-consuming process to receive this accreditation. The APA accreditation is the “gold standard” and implies that our PhD program follows the highest academic and professional standards of doctoral education in clinical psychology. We graduated the first two students from this PhD program in August!
Our clinical psychology master’s degree program has maintained the top spot in enrollment among nine peer programs across the state during the past decade. Our Master of Education degree programs are within the top one-third, enrollment wise, among our peer programs within the state, and our school improvement EdD program continues to see more demand and growth in enrollment.
Our psychology and education undergraduate majors continue to be two of the more popular majors across campus at second and sixth spots, respectively, in enrollment. We have 38 students graduating from our undergraduate education programs during commencement on Dec. 14. Thus, we are adding 38 new teachers to the profession this fall.
Valuing the importance of providing professional support to new teachers during their first few years in the profession, we have started an “Induction Support Program” for our graduates. In partnership with Tyler ISD, we have also implemented the THRIVE Mentorship Program for New Teachers in Tyler ISD with a grant from UT Austin. Both programs are being led jointly by Dr. Staci Zolkoski, director of the School of Education, and Ms. Cyndi Sherman, coordinator of the undergraduate programs. These types of support and mentorship programs have shown to be effective in teacher success and retention in the profession, thus alleviating teacher shortage. We are focused on adding properly qualified new teachers to the profession as well as impacting their success and retention via induction and mentoring support programs.
I thank you for your interest in and support of the life changing work we do in our college. I wish you an exciting holiday season and hope you enjoy all the celebrations you engage in during this time. Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!
Pradeep “Max” Dass, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Education and Psychology