Friday, March 6, 2015

The UNH Department of Education received the Frank B. Murray Award for Innovation and Excellence in Program Self-Study from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP).

The Frank B. Murray Award is presented annually to an educator preparation program selected from the set of cases granted accreditation, originally by the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC), and subsequently by the Inquiry Brief Commission of CAEP, during the previous year. The award recognizes excellence in the investigation of or inquiry into the performance of the program’s candidates and completers and in the capacity of the program’s quality control system to support programmatic improvement and excellence.

Associate Professor and Chair of Education Leslie Couse accepted the award on behalf of the Department at the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education annual meeting in Atlanta, Ga., on February 26.

“This national award is the culmination of that rigorous accreditation process led by Tom Schram, Mike Middleton, and Liz Arcieri to which all our faculty contributed,” says Couse. “UNH’s leadership in the pilot is also paving the way for the new national accreditation standards soon to be released by CAEP in 2015.”

In 2013, UNH was selected to pilot the new CAEP self-study process being developed as a result of the merger of TEAC and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education.  As a result, UNH’s five-year and post baccalaureate teacher education program was granted national accreditation by both CAEP and TEAC in 2014.