Vision, Purposes and Professional Commitment

Vision and Purposes

Education has the power to transform individuals and communities. Because we believe in the capacity of all individuals to attain their educational, occupational and personal goals, we understand education as an ongoing and transformative process that supports lifelong growth and the development of people, communities, and institutions.

The Core Purposes of Lehman College’s School of Education are to:

understand and affirm linguistic, ethnic, and cultural diversity as foundations for learning, teaching, counseling, and leading in educational settings;
create educational settings where human relationships are nurtured and where students acquire academic and personal/social skills that prepare them for success;
create educational cultures, climates, policies, and practices that are safe, equitable, and responsive to changing needs.

To enact these purposes, we recruit and retain faculty and students who are ethnically and culturally diverse, globally aware, knowledgeable, and principled.

Professional Commitments

We draw upon a richly diverse body of knowledge and experience to inform our practice as teacher, school counselor, and school leader. We come together at the interstices of numerous disciplines and practices and multiple perspectives and ways of knowing because we share a common commitment to urban transformative education. Education is about ensuring that every student achieves his or her academic, career, and college goals.

We believe that quality learning for students depends on quality learning for educators. Each educator preparation program must identify essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions and assess them in their candidates in order to ensure that graduates will have a positive impact on PreK-12 student populations.

To be transformative, learning is socially constructed, ideally within a network of caring and supportive relationships. Although we are housed in different places within and outside of the College, and although our knowledge bases and philosophies of education may differ, we are all committed to excellence in teacher, school counselor, and school leader education.

We believe that the School of Education is responsible for preparing teachers, school counselors, and school leaders who are capable of transforming the lives of students.

To make a difference in the lives of students, each of our programs is designed to help graduates develop a sense of efficacy and a belief that they can be agents of transformation.

We believe that the diversity of our candidates, which reflects the borough of the Bronx and surrounding communities, is essential to the quality of our programs.

Lehman College students come from diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic, social class, age, religious/spiritual, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, language, ability/disability, immigrant cultural communities and varied family types. Many of our candidates are from immigrant families, have acquired English as a second language, and are first generation college students. Their perspectives as emerging teachers, school counselors, and leaders have a profound impact on the School of Education. The children, adolescents, adults, and families that our pre-service and in-service educators serve also shape our identities as teacher, school counselor, and leadership educators. As we disaggregate data from our interventions using equity-focused assessment, we find compelling evidence of the importance of our work.

We believe in the rich contribution of each of our educational partners in transformative practice.

The School of Education serves the Bronx and our surrounding communities through partnerships and outreach programs that engage community leaders, teachers, school counselors, school administrators, families, and PreK-18 students in activities and projects that enhance the lives of individuals and the community as a whole.