Drake preface
Preface to Drake University School of Education Questionnaire
Dr. Janet McMahill, Dean
June 8, 2009
Thank you sincerely for the chance to showcase Iowa Colleges and Universities. I have
taken the liberty of adding this Preface as way of providing more background about the
Drake School of Education that may help you to interpret or view the statistics. It may be
that the next few paragraphs could be added to question # 9 that asks about exceptional
characteristics of our program. At any rate, here are my additional notes.
You will note that our enrollment is a much lower number than the major public
universities. When we consider the graduate and continuing education divisions of the
Drake SOE, our sphere of influence is actually very wide. We have avoided the
temptation to lower our standards or our tuition to “buy students” during these difficult
economic times. The number of undergraduates we serve is proportionate to the
number of faculty we employ to provide quality instruction ensuring small class sizes
and a four year graduation rate and retention rate consistently between 90 and 97%.
Students and parents are discovering the value of completing a full degree in four
years!
We also enroll over 700 Graduate students in the following programs:
Special Education
Effective Teaching Masters
Gifted and Talented Education Endorsement (now online!)
Middle School Endorsement (partially online)
Reading Endorsement
Elementary and Secondary School Principal
Specialist Degree for School Superintendent
Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership
School Counseling
Mental Health Counseling
Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling
Vocational Rehabilitation Administration
Adult Learning and Organizational Performance (College coursework for those
who are
trainers/teachers in various Des Moines corporations or hospitals)
The graduate courses listed above are offered on and off campus during the evening and
weekend to accommodate working adults.
For the last 20 years, we have had a large continuing education division that offers
courses to help teachers renew their teaching license, move upward on local salary
schedules or build elective credits that can be transferred into graduate degrees. These
courses from our Education Extension Division are offered year-round to teachers across
the U.S. and Canada as live, online, or video correspondence courses.
Finally, I would ask you to consider the connection of graduate to undergraduate
programs that co-exist at our University. The teaching, research and service completed
by the graduate faculty members have a positive impact on undergraduate programs. In
some cases, the same professor teaches undergraduate and graduate classes. The
primary research documents and databases that are required for graduate programs are
extensive and undergraduate students have equal access to Cowles library materials and
library professors. The conferences, workshops and special courses offered in Extension
Education can be made available to undergraduates at free or reduced charges. Our
graduate faculty members prepare the school leaders who supervise and ultimately hire
our undergraduates. These real-world partnerships keep us closely connected to best
practices for all levels of school educators. On a daily basis, we work with local and
regional Pk-12 schools along with the Area Education Agencies who co-sponsor
professional development with Drake.