Chappaqua, New York, Resident Is Recipient Of Spencer Foundation Mentor Award

Karen Kepler Zumwalt, one of the nation's leading authorities on teacher education, has been appointed Dean of Teachers College, Columbia University, Arthur Levine, President of the College, has announced. She assumed her new position on July 1.

A member of the Teachers College faculty since 1976, Professor Zumwalt has most recently been investigating alternate approaches in teacher education and certification. Her recent publications in this area include "Alternate Routes to Teaching: Three Alternative Approaches" in Journal of Teacher Education, "Challenges to an Alternative Route for Teacher Education" (coauthored with Gary Natriello, also a Teachers College faculty member) in The Changing Contexts of Teaching (the 91st Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education), and "New Teachers for Urban Schools? The Contribution of the Provisional Teacher Education Program in New Jersey" (also coauthored with Professor Natriello) in Education and Urban Society.

Since 1984, Zumwalt has been involved with the Holmes Group, a national organization of education professors and deans; the reports of the Holmes Group have called for major changes in teacher education programs. "As Teachers College investigates the way in which teachers should be prepared for the schools of the 21st Century, Dean Zumwalt will play a major role in our re-evaluation of teacher education programs and teacher preparation at the College," President Levine said.

Zumwalt has served since 1991 as Professor of Education on the Evenden Foundation at Teachers College. Last year, in recognition of her work as a teacher of teachers, the Spencer Foundation awarded her one of 16 Mentor Grants to facilitate the mentoring of doctoral students intending careers in educational research. In 1984, she received a research grant from the same Foundation to investigate "Academically Able Teachers." In 1983, she received the first Interpretive Scholarship Award from the American Education Research Association (AERA) for her article, "Research on Teaching: Policy Implications for Teacher Education," published in the 81st Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education.

She has held several administrative positions at Teachers College, including Director of the Preservice Program in Elementary Education, Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, and Director of the Division of Educational Institutions and Programs. She is the author or coauthor of more than two dozen publications in the areas of curriculum, teacher education and teaching and has been a frequent panelist at regional and national conferences. Her most recent publication is "What's a National Curriculum Anyway?" in Hidden Consequences of a National Curriculum, an AERA Public Service monograph.

A resident of Chappaqua, New York, she has served as an elected parent member of the site-based management team at Roaring Brook School for the past two years. She has also served on the School Board Nominating Committee, the PTA Parent Education Committee, and the New Castle Baseball Association Evaluation Committee. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Mount Holyoke College, her Master of Arts in Teaching degree in social studies from the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University and her Ph.D. in education from the University of Chicago. She wrote her dissertation on "The Evaluative Environment of Classrooms," based on her observation of 25 seventh graders over a full school year. Before coming to Teachers College, Professor Zumwalt taught for three years at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She had previously taught seventh-, eighth-and ninth-graders in Cleveland, Ohio, and Glencoe, Illinois, after student teaching in Boston.

Teachers College, a graduate school of education, is an affiliate of Columbia University but retains its legal and financial independence. The institution enrolls some 4,500 students in both master's and doctoral programs. In a recent U.S. News & World Report survey of graduate schools of education, the College was ranked fourth in the nation and first in the New York City area.

Published Friday, Jun. 28, 2002