Department of History

Response to Questions Posed by EPPC

Questions Involving NCATE Standards:

In her memorandum of 15 February 2002, Dean Sheerer expressed concern about issues raised during the last visit of NCATE representatives to the ECU campus.  Yet that visitation resulted in ECU receiving full accreditation from NCATE; Dean Sheerer’s concerns proved unfounded.  In their response to the deans’ proposal, members of the Mathematics Department have quoted at length two members of NCATE who clearly indicated the acceptability of the design for secondary education at ECU.  Wendy Wiggins, NCATE’s director of program reviews, concluded:  “It does not matter where programs are housed, as long as the institution can demonstrate overall coordination and oversight of the education programs.”  In short, NCATE seems perfectly satisfied with ECU’s current arrangement.

Questions Involving the Current Strength of and the Strengthening of Existing Teacher Education Programs and the Development of New Programs:

Along with NCATE officials, members of the History Department believe that the current program in secondary social studies education is effective.  The more significant question is whether the transferal of the program to the School of Education would result in better training for ECU students.  In the History Department, we fear that such a move would inevitably lead to unfortunate curricular revisions designed to sacrifice content at a time when the number of courses in the discipline should instead be increased.  (See the attached article from The Chronicle of Higher Education.)   Our conviction is underscored by the testimony of the graduates of the ECU program currently teaching in the five Pitt County high schools.  Without exception, these educators summarily rejected the proposal to move the program to the School of Education.  Indeed, while signing the petition we have previously submitted to EPPC, they vehemently renounced this initiative and expressed their indignation at not having been consulted about the wisdom of the proposed change by School of Education personnel.  As a result of circulating the petition, we have gained a fuller appreciation of the strained relations between Pitt County high school history teachers and the ECU School of Education.

Questions Involving Faculty Roles, Evaluation, Rewards, and Such:

The History Department’s tenured faculty has experienced no difficulty in evaluating the teacher education specialist in comparison with what non-education faculty in the same unit are required to do for promotion and tenure.  Evaluations of the teacher education specialist have certainly taken into account work in public schools.  The recent difficulty to which Dean Sheerer seems to have been referring stemmed wholly from administrative sources.  The director of social studies education was denied tenure despite a unanimous recommendation by the History Department’s tenured faculty; university administrators recommended against tenure and promotion.

Questions Involving Missions:

The Department of History has several missions in preparing undergraduate and graduate students to receive several different degrees (B.A., B.S., M.A., M.A.Ed., etc.)  One of our primary missions, involving roughly half of our undergraduate majors, is the preparation of secondary social studies teachers.  Recognizing the centrality of this mission, we employ a social studies educator whose credentials include a Ph.D. in history and teacher certification by the state of North Carolina.  With an emphasis on instruction in the discipline and a thorough recognition of the importance of pedagogy, this social studies educator prepares high school history teachers through classroom and clinical experiences while maintaining close ties with area high school instructors, conducting teacher workshops, and administering the ECU History Department’s Annual Symposium for High School Social Studies Teachers.

Conclusion:

Deans Sparrow and Sheerer contend that the transferal of these programs will have minimal impact on teacher education program curricula, an assertion that seems naÔve at best and disingenuous at worst.  Curriculum is a faculty, not an administrative, matter at ECU.  Curricular reform in the School of Education originates in the Council for Teacher Education, a body over which Dean Sheerer exerts no direct influence.  In fact, in her response to the questionnaire from EPPC, Dean Sheerer refers to expanded clinical experiences and “ways to better articulate the pedagogical portion of the degree programs.”  Such changes in the curriculum can only come as a result of a reduction in content courses.  Dean Sparrow dismisses concerns about “watered-down” curricula by referring to the supervisory role of the University Curriculum Committee, yet his assurances ignore the composition of that committee.  He can, in fact, provide no guarantees that the social studies curriculum will not be “watered-down,” and there is considerable reason to believe that it will be.  This is a serious concern of Pitt County high school history teachers, and it should be for ECU faculty and administrators as well.