STANDARD 4: DIVERSITY

As evidenced in its most recent strategic plan, Dalton State College is committed to diversity of both faculty and students.  The first goal in the plan states, The College will strengthen its commitment to embracing multiculturalism and diversity in all aspects of its operations. Strategies for achieving this goal, which is linked to Strategic Goals 1 and 2 of the University System of Georgia, include the following:

1. Building a community capable of recruiting, increasing, and retaining a culturally and linguistically diverse student body, faculty, and staff.
2. Providing opportunities for students and faculty to gain insights about culturally and linguistically diverse local, national, and international populations and to gain and promote a better understanding of social justice and equity.
3. Increasing course offerings that feature multicultural and global studies.
4. Instituting a multicultural/global general studies requirement for all degree programs.

The unit, in conjunction with the College, also shares a commitment to diversity as evidenced in its mission statement found in the conceptual framework: The unit’s mission is to prepare future educators who will challenge a new generation of students to reach their highest potential, acquire a love for learning, and become productive citizens in a 21st century democracy. Through exemplary teaching, service, and scholarship, the unit is committed to preparing educators for a diverse community of learners.

The unit has established a curriculum and related field experiences that enable its teacher
candidates to develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to become effective teachers of diverse P-12 students.

4a. Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Curriculum and Experiences

4a.1. What proficiencies related to diversity are candidates expected to develop and demonstrate?
All Dalton State College teacher candidates are expected to develop and demonstrate the
following six proficiencies that the unit faculty developed related to diversity.

• Teacher candidate displays the ability to work harmoniously and effectively with diverse individuals. 
• Teacher candidate demonstrates fair treatment for all students (i.e. gender, ethnicity, religion, learning abilities, socioeconomic status, and English language learners).
• Teacher candidate demonstrates the belief that all students can learn.
• Teacher candidate is sensitive, alert, and responsive to the specific intellectual, social, physical, and personal developmental needs of all students.
• Teacher candidate exhibits consistent and appropriate management of time, space, and learning resources for diverse students’ learning; and provides active/equitable engagement of students.
  
• Teacher candidate uses a variety of appropriate materials and resources to enhance instruction for diverse learners.
  

Teacher candidates develop these proficiencies in required courses and in the field and are assessed on them primarily in field placements and in clinical practice.

4a.2. What required coursework and experiences enable teacher candidates and candidates for other school professional roles to develop: awareness of the importance of diversity in teaching and learning; and the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions to adapt instruction and/or services for diverse populations, including linguistically and culturally diverse students and students with exceptionalities?
All of the unit’s educator preparation programs contain several courses that emphasize the importance of diversity in teaching and learning and contribute to the development of the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions to adapt instruction for diverse populations.  For the ECE and ECE with ESOL programs, a chart has been compiled showing the diversity proficiencies addressed in each course along with related assignments.   A similar chart is being developed for the secondary programs.

In the ECE program, three required courses are fully devoted to preparing teacher candidates to work with diverse learners: EDUC 3101 Teaching Students who are Exceptional, Diverse, or At-Risk;  ESOL 4240 Applied Linguistics for Teachers of English as a Second Language; and ESOL 4241 Methods of Teaching ESOL.  All candidates in secondary programs take EDUC 3120 Teaching Secondary Students Who Are Exceptional, Diverse, or At-Risk, a course designed to assist them in developing strategies for assessing and teaching students with disabilities.

An additional course on diversity, EDUC 2120 Exploring Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Diversity in Educational Contexts, was added to the ECE curriculum in fall 2007.  Most ECE candidates entering in fall 2008 and after will have taken the course.  Starting with those teacher candidates entering the ECE and secondary programs in the fall of 2010, the course will be required. 

The descriptions of each of these courses along with a sample of a relevant assignment or activity can be found in Diversity-Specific Courses.

4a.3. What key assessments provide evidence about candidates' proficiencies related to diversity? How are candidates performing on these assessments?
Two key assessments provide evidence about candidates’ proficiencies related to diversity: the Assessment of Professional Behaviors and Dispositions (APBD) and the Teacher Candidate Observation Instrument (TCOI).  The table below shows which indicators on the APBD and TCOI measure candidates’ performance on the proficiencies related to diversity.  It also reports how ECE and ECE with ESOL candidates performed on each proficiency during final internship, spring 2009.  Note that the top score in each cell is for ECE and the bottom score for ECE with ESOL endorsement.  The supervising teachers and college supervisors evaluate DSC teacher candidates quite favorably on the diversity proficiencies.

Table 4a.3.1 Assessment of Diversity Proficiencies

Proficiencies Assessed on TCOI

           
These instruments will also be used to assess the performance of candidates in all secondary programs. A follow-up survey of ECE program graduates provides information about how the unit’s graduates assess their ability to work with diverse learners.   In general, our graduates, at the end of their first year of teaching, reveal high levels of self-confidence in their abilities to work with diverse students. 

Table 4a.3.2 Graduates Survey

A somewhat different picture is found in the responses to similar items in a survey of employers of our recent graduates.  While the employers generally agreed or strongly agreed with each statement, there was a greater tendency toward agree rather than strongly agree than was found among the graduates themselves.  Nevertheless, overall, employers seem to find that DSC teacher candidates employed in their schools have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to effectively teach diverse students.

Table 4a.3.3  Employers Survey

            The complete Employers Survey can be viewed in the exhibit room at Exhibit 4a.3.4.

4b. Experiences Working with Diverse Faculty

4b.1. What opportunities do candidates (including candidates at off-campus sites and/or in distance learning or alternate route programs) have to interact with higher education and/or school-based faculty from diverse groups?
While the percent of DSC faculty from minority or other groups has increased over the past few years, in general, it must be said that the unit’s candidates do not currently have sufficient opportunity to interact with faculty from diverse groups.  It is quite possible for a candidate to go through the entire program and not have a faculty member from a diverse group.  The same problem is found in the limited opportunity to work with diverse faculty in the K-12 settings.

4b.2. What knowledge and experiences do faculty have related to preparing candidates to work with students from diverse groups?
Although the unit’s faculty is predominantly white, non-Hispanic, they possess a broad range of experiences and education related to diverse populations.  A complete listing of these experiences appears in  Unit Faculty Diversity Experiences.  This document reveals faculty have taught on reservation schools, in inner city schools with 100% African American enrollment, and in historically Black Institutions of Higher Education.  Several faculty have taught and/or served as administrators in schools with large populations of non-native speakers of English, and most of the faculty have taught or administered in high poverty, Title I schools. Other diverse teaching situations include Appalachian schools and inclusion classrooms.
 Faculty have participated in cultural and/or language immersion programs in Argentina, Costa Rica, Malaysia, and Mexico, and some faculty have presented academic papers abroad in such countries as Qatar, the Czech Republic, and Guatemala.

  Faculty have also enrolled in a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses aimed at increasing understanding of diverse populations, such as African American literature.  Further, the faculty avail themselves of campus-sponsored opportunities to expand their knowledge of diverse populations and to learn ways to help teacher candidates.  For example, half of the SOE faculty attended a one-day workshop on diversity in higher education conducted by Christine Sleeter in the spring of 2009.  Also, the College sponsored a Disability Awareness Day in February 2009, which several unit faculty attended.

4b.3. How diverse are the faculty members who work with education candidates? [Diversity characteristics in addition to those in Table 8 can also be presented and/or discussed, if data are available, in response to other prompts for this element.] Please complete Table 8 or upload your own table at Prompt 4b.5 below.

Table 4b.3.1   Faculty Demographics, Fall 2008

*Demographics based on supervising teachers only.  Note that totals may not equal 100% due to lack of response to selected items on the data collection form sent to supervising teachers.

During the unit’s developmental visit in 2007, the demographics of the total full-time DSC faculty were as follows: 94.6% white, non-Hispanic, 3.1% Black; .8% Asian; and 1.6% other.  During that academic year, minorities (including international faculty) represented 5.5% of the faculty. The Table above reports data for fall 2008, which reveals that 8.4% of the faculty was from diverse groups.  While still an overwhelmingly White faculty, the College minority faculty percentages have shown an increase over the past few years.

The demographics for the full-time faculty of the School of Education are similar in terms of racial or ethnic diversity, with only 1 out of 14 members, or 7.2%, representing a minority group. In fall 2008, the School of Education employed 14 full-time faculty, 14.3% male and 86.7% female. The hiring of Dr. Soto demonstrates that the College’s efforts to diversify faculty have met with some success across the institution; however, the unit will need to increase efforts if it is to have a faculty that is more representative of the service area. Recognizing this need, the Unit is in the process of developing a formal Faculty Recruitment Plan.

4b.4. What efforts does the unit make to recruit and retain a diverse faculty?
The unit advertises all full-time faculty vacancies locally on the DSC website, statewide through the University System of Georgia website, and nationally in The Chronicle of Higher Education and InsideHigherEducation.com.  All vacancy announcements also appear in one or more publications targeting minority readers and all vacancy announcements encourage the application of minority applicants with the following wording:
Employment opportunities, admissions policies, activities, services, and facilities of the College do not exclude any person on the basis of race, color, age, sex, religion, national origin or disability. Dalton State College is an Affirmative Action Program Institution.

One high point of the unit’s attempt to diversify faculty is the hiring of Dr. Lourdes Diaz Soto as the Goizueta Endowed Chair in Education.  In May 2008, following a national search, Dr. Soto, formerly Professor of Education at the University of Texas at Austin, was hired as Professor and Goizueta Foundation Chair in Education.  Dr. Soto has an international reputation as a teacher and scholar in the field of early childhood education in bilingual/bicultural environments and experience facilitating links between academic units and their surrounding communities.

Dr. Soto, of Puerto Rican origin, holds a  Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University, and has taught in elementary, middle, and secondary school settings in Puerto Rico. In higher education, she has taught at Pennsylvania State, Florida Atlantic University, Lehigh University, Teachers College of Columbia University, and the University of Texas.  She is the author, co-author, or editor of six books, a contributor to twenty-one books, and author or co-author of thirty-eight articles in refereed journals.  She has made more than one hundred presentations to international, national, regional, or local audiences and was the recipient of the Spencer Foundation’s Small Grants Award for her research project, “Bilingual Families and Early Schooling.”

4c. Experiences Working with Diverse Candidates

4c.1. What opportunities do candidates (including candidates at off-campus sites and/or in distance learning or alternate route programs) have to interact with candidates from diverse groups?
Prior to entering the teacher preparation programs, candidates are very likely to be in classes with diverse peers.  DSC currently has the highest percentage of Latino/a students (approximately 11%) in the University System of Georgia.  Once in the program, candidates have opportunities in classes, in recognized student organizations (Kappa Delta Pi Education Honor Society; Future Educators Club), and in their field placements to interact with candidates of both genders.  They also have opportunity to interact with candidates who are African American and multiethnic, although not to the extent the unit would like.   Clearly, increased recruitment of minority candidates is needed.  The unit does not capture demographic data related to SES, religion, or disability status, so at this time, we cannot address whether teacher candidates have opportunity to interact with candidates representing those diverse areas.    

4c.2. How diverse are the candidates in initial teacher preparation and advanced preparation programs? [Diversity characteristics in addition to those in Table 9 can also be presented and discussed, if data are available, in other prompts of this element.] Please complete Table 9 or upload your own table at Prompt 4c.4 below.

Table 4c.2.1    Candidate Demographics, Spring 2009

*   These figures are for candidates admitted in Fall 08
**This figure does not exclude white Hispanic.

The table below presents demographics of the eleven counties served by Dalton State.  Each cell presents the number of people followed by the percentage of total population.  An examination of the table reveals that each of the counties served is predominantly white, ranging from 87.8% to 96.9%.  The source of these data does not separate white and non-Hispanic white.  A look at the Hispanic/Latino data reveals considerable diversity in some counties (e.g. Whitfield, Gordon, and Murray).  The population of Black or African American is relatively small, ranging from .9% to 10.8%. 

Table 4c.2       Diversity of Eleven County Geographical Area Served by Institution: 2007*

(Note:  Percentages are calculated only when more than .5% of total)
* Information obtained through 2009 Georgia County Guide.  Susan R. Boatright (Ed.).  Athens, GA:  Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development.

4c.3. What efforts does the unit make to recruit and retain candidates from diverse groups?
At Dalton State College, student recruitment is viewed as the responsibility of specific members of Enrollment Services.  Enrollment Services has several initiatives aimed at increasing the numbers of diverse students on campus.  These initiatives include hiring a recruiter to recruit in the Atlanta area, which contains high percentages of African American students.  DSC also crosses the border into Tennessee where it recruits students from Chattanooga State Technical Community College.  Of course, recruiters regularly visit local high schools, several of which (e.g., Dalton High School, Southeast High School) have majority minority populations.

The unit works jointly with Enrollment Services. The Dean will be making visits to high minority high schools with the new Atlanta-based recruiter to encourage diverse students to consider entering an educator preparation program at DSC. The SOE will also participate with the School of Sciences and Mathematics in a minority recruitment night held each spring at Southeast High School, a school with a majority-minority population. Finally, initiatives have been introduced to plan joint meetings between the unit’s student organization members and members of the Future Educators Clubs at Southeast and Dalton High Schools in an effort to market the college’s teacher preparation programs and recruit minority candidates.

4d. Experiences Working with Diverse Students in P-12 Schools

4d.1. How does the unit ensure that candidates develop and practice knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions related to diversity during their field experiences and clinical practice?
During field experiences and clinical practice, all candidates are evaluated multiple times on two instruments:  the TCOI and the APBD.  Each of these contains indicators that assess diversity competencies.  Candidates are expected to earn scores at an acceptable level on these.  In the event they do not do so, they meet with their supervisors to develop a plan of improvement.

4d.2. How diverse are the P-12 students in the settings in which candidates participate in field experiences and clinical practice? Please complete Table 10 or upload your own table at Prompt 4d.4 below. [Although NCATE encourages institutions to report the data available for each school used for clinical practice, units may not have these data available by school. If the unit uses more than 20 schools for clinical practice, school district data may be substituted for school data in the table below. In addition, data may be reported for other schools in which field experiences, but not clinical practice, occur. Please indicate where this is the case.]
DSC teacher candidates have ample opportunity to work with diverse P-12 students during field experiences and clinical practice.  The unit collects demographic data showing the diversity of P-12 students in settings in which candidates participate in field experiences and clinical practice.

4d.3. How does the unit ensure that candidates use feedback from peers and supervisors to reflect on their skills in working with students from diverse groups?
Prior to program completion, all candidates complete an electronic portfolio demonstrating their understanding of, and performance on, the INTASC principles.  Starting with those candidates who entered the program in fall 2008, the unit requires all candidates to include a written reflection in the section on the Principle 3 Learning Styles and Diversity in which they analyze their performance on the diversity-related indicators of the APBD and TCOI and describe how they have used feedback to improve their skills in working with diverse P-12 students.

1. What does your unit do particularly well related to Standard 4?
The unit has a well-established record of preparing the ECE candidates to work with linguistically diverse P-12 students. The impetus for incorporating ESOL classes in the ECE curriculum was the growing linguistic diversity in the unit’s service area schools. During the past four years, over 90% of the ECE completers also earned an endorsement in ESOL. This is notable in that the state of Georgia, unlike some states, does not require ECE teachers to have qualifications in working with English language learners. Even those ECE program completers who do not complete the endorsement take two courses in linguistics and ESOL methods.

2. What research related to Standard 4 is being conducted by the unit or its faculty?
Professor Soto's research centers on issues of diversity and how these relate to social justice and equity. More specifically her current research projects center on children's perceptions of immigration, theoretical possibilities of Xicana participatory action research, and how teacher education classrooms can integrate issues of diversity into the classroom with community action projects.