A letter from the Dean: Fall 2024

EXCITEMENT IS IN THE AIR across campus and within CEHD. The new academic year has begun and there is great anticipation for the possibilities. This includes: transition in the President’s Office with Rebecca Cunningham as the 18th president of the U of M, new academic unit heads in the School of Kinesiology (Alex Garn); Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development (interim, Joan DeJaeghere); Department of Curriculum and Instruction (Marek Oziewicz); and new faculty and staff—meet many of them in the following pages.

I am excited about this issue of CEHD Connect, where we explore and describe new initiatives, the elevation of ongoing projects, and lots of news from around the college. The way the stories convey how the CEHD community is responsive to persistent challenges and emerging needs is incredibly inspiring.

We are leading the way in innovations in scholarship and practice through Esports, computer science education, and mental health supports in schools, to name just a few. We continue to build culturally and linguistically responsive practices and policies through our work in early childhood classrooms, and Indigenous communities across the globe.

The new partnership with Black Men Teach is opening the doors for deeply needed professionals in schools where communities know that presence, mentorship, and connections make a difference having a teacher with similar lived experience is too often taken for granted, and yet not realized in some communities.

I also want to thank Julio Caésar (PhD ’20) for leading the Alumni Society this year. Julio was my advisee, and I know firsthand that he embodies the engaged scholar-practitioner model that many of our graduates do. Yet another example of the lasting sustainable impact of CEHD.

— DEAN MICHAEL C. RODRIGUEZ

(Photo by Rebecca Slater)