Teachers College has announced the appointment of Celia Oyler, Professor of Education, as Vice Dean for Teacher Education.
Oyler will provide strategic leadership and advocacy for teacher education practice, policy, and research at the College and oversee activities and initiatives of the Office of Teacher Education and other centers and offices which support teacher education.
The appointment presents an opportunity for Oyler to expand on established partnerships that advance inquiry, research, curriculum-making, inclusive instruction and culturally-sustainable learning to support education equity in schools across New York City and, indeed, the nation.
The position at the same time creates opportunities for Oyler to develop new directions for TC teacher education programs; spearhead a substantial re-thinking and re-design of the resource model for teacher education at TC as well as programmatic evaluation; and take a leadership role in local and national partnerships, scholarly organizations, and education policy discussions.
“Celia has an unmatched record of conceptualizing and executing innovative, high-impact teacher programming and forging strategic partnerships with districts and schools that meaningly improve learning environments and have a palpable, positive impact on kids,” said Provost, Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs Stephanie Rowley in announcing the appointment. “Under her leadership, I am certain TC’s teacher education programs will continue to lead the field in innovation, transformation and social justice.”
Oyler joined TC in 1997 as an assistant professor in Curriculum & Teaching with an appointment to the Elementary Education program.
She has partnered with colleagues in the design of the Elementary Inclusive Education program that gained national recognition from a Congressional Blue Ribbon Panel, and was recently selected as the site for a Spender Foundation-funded case study of exemplary inclusive pre-service dual certification programs. This year the program launched with a new curriculum and expanded reach; starting with the class entering in 2021, all pre-service teachers in the TC Elementary Education program are dual-certified in Childhood Education and Teaching Students with Disabilities.
The founding Co-Director of TC’s College Inclusive Classrooms Project, Oyler has mentored generations of student teachers and university-based teacher educators and is a prolific researcher who prioritizes close, collaborative research with practitioners.
Oyler has authored numerous articles and book chapters as well as three books—Actions Speak Louder than Words: Community Activism as Curriculum (2012), Making Room for Students: Sharing Teacher Authority in Room 104 (1996), and Learning to Teach Inclusively: Student Teachers’ Classroom Inquiries (with the Preservice Inclusion Study Group) (2006).
From 2015 to 2019, she was a visiting Professor of Inclusive Education at the University of Edinburgh.