On behalf of our students, staff, and faculty, I would like to welcome you to the Hunter College School of Education. For over one hundred and forty years, the school has dedicated itself to preparing teachers for their vital work in the schools of New York City and beyond. As we continue to build on this remarkable legacy, we are committed to programs that are cutting-edge – backed by the best research and practical experience – and timeless, grounded on deep consideration of what it means to be an educated person.

In the last few years, our focus on providing the best in teacher preparation has brought us a major partnership with three of NYC’s best performing charter school organizations, a nationally innovative program using video-analysis of student teaching, and large numbers of new programs and initiatives in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education and New York State. Our work has been recognized in national press coverage and supported by major private gifts and a steadily increasing flow of public and private grants.

In the pursuit of our goals, we have been making major additions to a faculty that has achieved outstanding expertise and national recognition for their scholarship in the multiple fields that make up a comprehensive teacher preparation program. Major grants have supported faculty research in such diverse domains as education technology, bilingual education, and teaching vision rehabilitation professionals. Our faculty is equally engaged in professional development of in-service teachers, the preparation of counselors for in-school and out-of-school settings, education policy reform initiatives, and designing and supporting community-school partnerships.

Hannah Arendt once wrote that when we choose to educate the next generation, we have to take responsibility for our world, for the portrait of that world we wish to place before our children, for the stories we will share with them, and the knowledge that will ground their freedom. I invite you to share that responsibility with us at Hunter College: a public school in the public service devoted to preparing teachers to perform at the very highest levels in our schools.

David Steiner