Dear Members of the Teachers College Community:

I am so pleased to welcome each of you back to campus for the 2023-2024 year. This is a very exciting time to be at Teachers College—for all of us. Among the many things we can celebrate are the following:

• We are welcoming 11 new tenure track/tenured faculty and more than seven new lecturers.
• We welcome some 1,500 new students and nearly 3,000 continuing students hailing from more than 50 countries and more than 40 U.S. states and territories. 
• Based on the important work of the Faculty Executive Committee and leadership across the College, we are reconfiguring our Ed.D. programs to be completed with 75 credits—the same as our Ph.D. programs.
• After a packed summer, we are looking ahead to dynamic new events and activities ranging from a symposium on the Educational Neuroscience of Reading to a visit from students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa as part of our Racial Justice Fellowship program. 

As a new member of the TC community, I have appreciated learning about the joy and purpose students, faculty and staff find in their programs, scholarship and practice in the field. And, importantly, the urgency felt about our DEI and social justice missions, connections to New York City and desire to have concrete impact in so many areas in which we work.

As President Bailey noted in his welcome back message, the work completed last year in the creation of a TC mission statement was a critical and historic step forward. The next step is to affirm how we see ourselves carrying out that mission, the vision that will direct priorities and the actions necessary to achieve our objectives. 

We now have an opportunity to clarify our commitments and develop a vision and action plan, building on the momentum created in past conversations about the public good and faculty mission survey, as well as benefiting from the priorities set by President Bailey. Such a plan will help us answer “why” and “how,” which will animate our work and steer our priorities as we move forward.

We will integrate the substantive conversations that have occurred so far, and make sure to design a process which uses our time intentionally and judiciously. Our process to develop a vision and action statement will include the following components.

TC Commitments: Vision and Action

Organizing Dialogues

We will host four dialogues as a TC community in person and through virtual forums that will help us consider our most salient commitments and the actions necessary to enact those commitments in the near future.

• Dialogue I: Commitments to our students

Recognizing students are at the center of all we do, what are the distinctive characteristics of a TC graduate experience? What are the promises we want to make to our students for what and how they can learn, grow and contribute while at TC?

• Dialogue II: Commitments to our fields of study and practice

Recognizing the impact we want our work to have, how do we ensure our scholarship is being translated and shared? How is our scholarship being developed in ways that can impact individuals, schools and organizations more immediately?

How do we ensure that TC continues to attract, retain and support scholars who lead knowledge creation in their fields?

How can TC ensure that it is supporting the communities of professionals it prepares?

• Dialogue III: Commitments to NYC schools and community partners

Recognizing the historic relationship between TC and NYC, how do we need to organize to be most consequential, agile and responsive to the biggest educational, social and health challenges facing NYC?

How might TC be a stronger partner to schools, health care providers, NGOs and nonprofits, and policy-makers?

How might TC move research to practice, innovate and contribute to social justice?

• Dialogue IV: Commitments to each other, our communities and our College

Recognizing our commitment to each other and to TC as an institution, how might TC invest in our people and our communities to more fully allow them to thrive here and have an impact in the world?

How might TC become more effective, agile, inclusive and innovative as an organization? How can we be good stewards of resources and contribute to a sustainable future?

What policies do we need to ensure equity and inclusion across student, faculty and staff roles and experiences at TC?

Please think of these dialogue topics as starting places, not ending places. The dialogue questions roughly mirror our mission statement, which includes knowledge creation, focus on education/students, and impact on practice and partnerships. These dialogues also reflect the historic and valued relationship TC shares with a diverse and dynamic NYC. Finally, the dialogues reflect a close reading of the prior feedback given, so far, through faculty mission surveys and President’s dinners, as well as stated Presidential priorities.

You can read more about the process we have outlined to clarify our vision and actions on this dedicated landing page.

Timeline of Dialogues

Our intention is to hold these dialogues in October, November, December and late January. We will post themes emerging from each session in our virtual forum and use existing faculty, student and staff bodies to share themes and iteratively integrate feedback toward a 3-5-page vision and action statement by March 2024.

I recognize that is an ambitious timeline; however, since we are not starting from scratch and instead begin informed by prior conversations about themes and priorities, President Bailey and I think it is feasible.  

In Closing: Our Commitment to Inquiry and Community

TC has long been recognized as a leader, having opened new areas of inquiry, created and shaped new opportunities in education, health and psychology, and innovated in ways that reshaped practice. Leaders make choices and in doing so commit to paths that make a difference. No institution can do everything—but by affirming our commitments, we can clarify together our next steps. 

I am excited about this opportunity to dialogue together as a community about what is most important to us, what we want to be accountable for, actions we can take to live our commitments, and how we will measure and affirm success.

As I move through the beautiful, historic buildings that are part of TC’s campus, I cannot help but reflect on the wisdom of those who walked these halls before. For example, groundbreaking Teachers College alumna Shirley Chisholm said, “I have never cared too much what people say. What I am interested in is what they do.”

I look forward to all we will do together this year. Wishing you a wonderful beginning to the fall semester!

All the best,

KerryAnn O’Meara
Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean of the College