Our Strategic Plan

After months of dialogue, deliberations, and reflections by our faculty, students, and staff, our college unanimously adopted a new strategic plan in January 2020. Additionally, our college is committed to taking action to advance racial justice in our community and our faculty, staff, and students have identified several priorities to continue to decolonize our own institution and the systems within which we operate. Learn more about our strategic plan, funded projects, and racial justice priorities below.

• Identity Statement
• Four Pillars
• 2021-2022 Grants
• 2020-2021 Grants
• Steering Committee

Strategic Plan Identity Statement

At the SJSU Lurie College of Education, we prepare transformative educators, counselors, therapists, school and community leaders. We do this through an emancipatory approach across our teaching, scholarship, and service with a focus on the four areas below.

• Lurie College commitment to racial justice

  • Our racial justice commitments hone and strengthen the priorities outlined in our college’s strategic plan. They complement and extend the existing strategic initiatives in the college and recognize that if we are truly to live our mission, we must center anti-racist policies and practices in our teaching, research, and service and end the systemic racism that has historically prevented full inclusion and equity for our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) students, staff, and faculty.

    During the 2020-21 academic year, we are committed to taking the actions outlined below to advance racial justice in our college and community. These actions were identified through multiple conversations among faculty, staff, and students seeking to understand and reform the language, norms, policies, and practices, as well as underlying thinking and ideologies, that exist in our programs, departments, and the college to limit and prevent equal participation and shared power with BIPOC students, staff, and faculty.

    We believe that these actions are critical steps in what will need to be a continuing and concerted effort to decolonize our own institution and the systems within which we operate. At the end of the 2020-21 academic year, we will report on progress made and commit to next steps to advance our racial justice priorities.  

Strategic Plan Pillars

1 - Community-Engaged

We strive to become the hub for community-centered, educational transformation in the region.

• Examples of initial strategic plan initiatives

  • - Build a rich partner network of schools and community organizations

    - Create professional learning programs with the community

    - Enable community leaders to share their insights with our students and the larger community

• Examples of racial justice priorities

  • - Strengthen outreach and recruitment for prospective students with an emphasis on recruiting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) applicants who are committed to racial justice

    - Identify/strengthen collaborations, student teaching, and internship placements/MOUs with local schools and colleges with high enrollment of BIPOC students and that are committed to anti-racist policies and practices

    - Strengthen outreach to BIPOC alumni to provide ongoing professional support and encourage their engagement with current students as mentors, fieldwork supervisors, and advocates

    - Provide open-access extra-curricular seminars, workshops, and colloquia for students and community partners to engage in interdisciplinary conversations to cultivate anti-oppressive, anti-racist policies, practices, and pedagogies within educational institutions

    - Launch of the Institute for Emancipatory Education. The mission of this P20 focused institute is to create more equitable and inclusive educational systems that nurture the creativity and brilliance of all learners so that our diverse, democratic society can truly thrive. The guiding principles of IEE are to center historically marginalized learners and communities, partner with community, and build bridges across institutions from preschool through post-secondary

    - Launch of the Healthy Development Clinic to be located in East Side San Jose to strengthen collaboration and engagement with local communities with an emphasis on equity through wellness for children, youth, and families

2 - Culturally Sustaining

We value and sustain the linguistic and cultural practices of the communities we serve and make that the foundation of our work.

• Examples of initial strategic plan initiatives

  • - Engage in professional learning and self-reflection in culturally sustaining practices and enact them in classrooms

    - Strengthen curricular integration and centering of culturally sustaining pedagogy in and across existing and new programs

    - Conduct outreach, recruitment, on-boarding, and support of underrepresented faculty, staff, and students

• Examples of racial justice priorities

  • - Increase scholarship supports for BIPOC students committed to anti-racist priorities

    - Strengthen inclusion of BIPOC researchers and theorists in course syllabi

    - Recognize, value, and highlight scholarship from our faculty and students that focuses on issues of racial justice, educational equity, and culturally sustaining pedagogy and provide multiple venues to showcase this research for internal and external audiences

    - Implement learning outcomes assessment practices with an equity and culturally-sustaining approach

3 - Holistic

We foster a caring and supportive community of belonging, connectedness, and appreciation.

• Examples of initial strategic plan initiatives

  • - Develop college-wide experiences and resources for students, staff, and faculty that cultivate a culture of welcome, support, appreciation, and inclusivity

    - Cultivate physical and virtual spaces that encourage ongoing relationship-building among students, staff, faculty, and community partners

• Examples of racial justice priorities

  • - Cultivate a sense of belonging and connectedness with current students and provide intensive advising across the areas of academic, career, and personal/social development to ensure students, particularly those from BIPOC communities, are valued and included

    - Increase scholarship supports for BIPOC students committed to anti-racist priorities

    - Strengthen efforts to recruit diverse faculty and staff through targeted outreach, DEI training for hiring committees, and critical assessment of application review and interview procedures

    - Grow student representation in department- and college-level committees, including continued presence on the college strategic plan steering committee

4 - Interdisciplinary

We learn together across and beyond the college, transforming schooling and benefitting our communities.

• Examples of initial strategic plan initiatives

  • - Develop interdisciplinary experiences, coursework, and degree programs that bring together the Lurie College of Education community

    - Engage faculty and students in interdisciplinary research

• Examples of racial justice priorities

  • - Provide anti-racist, culturally sustaining, and intersectional professional learning workshops to faculty and staff. These may be led by internal faculty experts and/or external consultants

    - Engage faculty and staff in college-wide anti-racist affinity groups for BIPOC faculty and staff and white faculty and staff

    - Develop and launch new courses and programs that directly address issues of race, justice, and intersectionality

    - Critically examine coursework and pedagogical practices to ensure they reflect a lens of racial justice. Update course content, syllabi, and assignments to address systemic racism, racial justice, and intersectionality

2021-2022 Strategic Plan Grants

During the Spring 2021 term, we coordinated a grant proposal process within our college to support endeavors by our faculty, students, and staff that advance our four priority areas. The nine projects that have been awarded funding include:

• Bilingual Communication Project

  • Project Leaders

    - Peitzu Tsai, PhD - Faculty, Communicative Disorders and Sciences
    - Lyle Lustigman, PhD - Faculty, Communicative Disorders and Sciences
    - Janet Bang, PhD - Faculty, Child and Adolescent Development

    Project Description

    Nearly half of the people in California speak a language other than English, including 40% of students in public education, and more than 60% of young children under age 5 are dual language learners (CalEd Facts, 2019; Census, 2020; Holtby, Lordi, Park, & Ponce, 2017). However, support for dual language learners has been challenged by lack of available high-quality assessment (Chernoff, Keuter, Uchikoshi, Quick, & Manship, 2021) and limited evidence-based information on dual speech-language development across languages in early childhood. Without empirical evidence, clinicians and educators are often required to make decisions based on judgments that are at risk of biases, particularly while serving clients and families whose cultural-linguistic backgrounds differ from their own. Strengthening our understanding of dual speech-language development can not only establish high-quality, evidence-based, developmentally-appropriate, and culturally-responsive practice guidelines, but also prepare future clinicians and educators to curb biases and make equitable and holistic decisions while serving children and families with diverse backgrounds. This current project aims to examine speech fluency patterns in the course of bilingual language development in Mandarin-English speaking children to provide future clinicians and educators training in differential diagnosis and recognizing signs for referral related to bilingual fluency development, provide evidence for the professional communities about bilingual fluency development, signs for referrals and appropriate clinical services, increase collaboration between SLP and ChAD undergraduate and graduate student training to inform curricular design in enhancing interdisciplinary student engagement in research and community service, and provide developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive information for bilingual families in relation to supporting speech and communication in young children at home.

• Creating an Inclusive Climate: Queering Our Classrooms and Our Campus

  • Project Leaders

    - Robert Marx, PhD - Faculty, Child and Adolescent Development
    - Kyoung Mi Choi, PhD - Faculty, Counselor Education
    - Frank Peña - Outreach Coordinator, The LGBTQ Youth Space

    Project Description

    If you’re hoping to make your class, office, or programming more accessible for and supportive of your queer and trans students and coworkers, be on the lookout for upcoming training sessions and a professional learning community supported by the Strategic Plan Seed Grant. “Creating an Inclusive Climate: Queering Our Classrooms and Our Campus” represents a partnership between the Lurie College of Education and The LGBT Youth Space to offer introductory and advanced trainings at the department and college level around topics like pronouns and vocabulary terms, the hidden curriculum in our classes, and creating opportunities for authentic self-expression. We will also be hosting a Professional Learning Community for faculty and staff who want to more deeply engage in the work of transforming their corner of the campus into a queer-affirming space.

• Early Childhood Connections

  • Project Leaders

    - Joy Foster - Faculty, Child and Adolescent Development
    - Jessica Fraser - Faculty, Child and Adolescent Development

    Support Team

    - Iya Namata - Student, Child and Adolescent Development
    - Isabel Vallejo, EdD - Staff, Dean's Office
    - Andrea Golloher, PhD - Faculty, Special Education
    - Donna Bee-Gates, PhD - Faculty, Child and Adolescent Development
    - Maria Fusaro, EdD - Faculty, Child and Adolescent Development

    Project Description

    Early Childhood Connections brings together a cohort of SJSU Lurie College of Education students and recent alumni from across disciplines, who are in pursuit of careers involving young children. Through virtual meetings, ECC provides a space for participants to cultivate relationships, build community, and learn from community partners.

• Enacting Emancipatory Education: The Development of an Intersectional Disability Studies Strand (IDSS) at SJSU

  • Project Leaders

    - Saili Kulkarni, PhD - Faculty, Special Education
    - Sudha Krishnan, EdD - Faculty, Special Education

    Project Description

    This project seeks to develop an Intersectional Disability Studies Strand (IDSS) under the existing Institute for Emancipatory Education (IEE) at San José State University. Housed in the Lurie College of Education under the Institute for Emancipatory Education, the (IDSS) at San Jose Staté University will serve as a community-engaged, culturally sustaining space that centers disability visibility and disability as an intersectional identity. Our strand is defined as a space within the IEE that would provide specific resources and supports to engage intersectional disability studies and accessibility in education.

• Enhancing Ethnic Studies Education and Teacher Diversity Pathways

  • Project Leaders

    - Luis Poza, PhD - Faculty, Teacher Education
    - Travis Boyce, PhD - Faculty, African American Studies
    - Khalid White, EdD - Faculty, San José City College

    Project Description

    This project will unify and provide support for numerous incipient efforts currently underway between the Teacher Education Department and various other entities. TED seeks to diversify the teacher workforce and increase the anti-racist and emancipatory orientations of teacher candidates. One part of this work is the Ethnic Studies Residency Program (ESRP), which places carefully selected Social Science/History teacher candidates in Ethnic Studies classrooms at Overfelt High School of East Side Union High School District to help prepare teachers specifically of Ethnic Studies or, at minimum, with robust understanding of Ethnic Studies principles and practices should they go on to teach another subject within their credential. Another facet of the work involves partnering with the Ethnic Studies Council at San Jose State to recruit undergraduates in African American Studies, Chicana/o/x Studies, Asian American Studies, and Native American Studies into teacher preparation pathways through the SAGE programs that allow undergraduates to start taking graduate level courses for their teaching credential in their final years as they simultaneously complete their majors. A third dimension encompasses collaboration with Ethnic Studies faculty at San Jose City College who also teach high school dual enrollment Ethnic Studies courses to help their students feel welcome at their various transition points (from high school to junior college, transferring to SJSU SAGE undergraduate pathways, and ideally to Lurie College graduate programs including the ESRP). This project unifies all three of these efforts as part of a cohesive pipeline for capacity-building around Ethnic Studies content and pedagogy.

• Expanding Community Capacity for Youth Civic Empowerment

  • Project Leaders

    - Ellen Middaugh, PhD - Faculty, Child and Adolescent Development
    - Mark Felton, PhD - Faculty, Teacher Education

    Project Description

    Civic education is widely viewed as an essential part of the K–12 education social studies. Yet, high quality civics curriculum is limited and even less has been developed surrounding online civic engagement that intentionally incorporates the lived experiences of students and teachers (Andolin & Conckin, 2020). Furthermore, research has found racial inequities in access to high quality civic learning opportunities, such as opportunities to discuss social problems and current events, options to express student voice and make decisions in an open classroom climate, and inequities based on school achievement and socioeconomic status in the total number of high quality civic learning opportunities (Kahne & Middaugh, 2008). Previous research suggests that the most effective civic education involves teaching through civic participation rather than just teaching about it (Blevins, LeCompte & Wells, 2016). However, teaching through participation online, which is where much public discourse unfolds and where youth often engage with civic issues (Cohen et al, 2012), can feel risky to teachers who have little experience in guiding youth in navigating such settings (Herold, 2016), especially in politically diverse environments. Our goals are to share existing opportunities and practices for youth civic empowerment (e.g. what’s working); identify critical needs for expanding and deepening youth civic empowerment: explore opportunities for integrating digital and civic learning opportunities in school; propose a set of design principles for curriculum that promotes civic action through social media; and develop and implement exemplar units.

• Interprofessional Education Project

  • Project Leaders

    - Jason Laker, PhD - Faculty, Counselor Education
    - Colette Rabin, PhD - Faculty, Teacher Education
    - Grinell Smith, PhD - Faculty, Teacher Education

    Project Description

    The Interprofessional Education Project group - Jason Laker (Counselor Education), Rebeca Burciaga (Educational Leadership); and Collette Rabin, Grinell Smith, and Lara Kassab (Teacher Education) - will develop two interdisciplinary education courses to be offered College-wide. One will focus on socio-cultural foundations of education, and the other will introduce students to Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR), possibly in collaboration with a local School District or other educational or community organization. We will be consulting with faculty across the College to identify representative content, apprehend interest and support among our colleagues, and determine the elements needed for one or both courses to “count” toward various degree and credential programs.

• Justice-Centered Science Teacher Collective: Supporting the Preparation and Development of K-12 Justice-Centered Science Teacher Leaders and Change Agents

  • Project Leaders

    - Tammie Visintainer, PhD - Faculty, Teacher Education
    - Single Subject Credential Program teacher candidates and beginning teacher alumni; teachers from the Lurie College STEM+C Teacher Institute

    Project Description

    In this moment in history, the intersecting racial injustice, public health, and environmental crises have laid bare myriad educational inequities and the K-12 education system finds itself at the precipice of reproducing the injustices of normalcy or transformative change. At the same time, in K-12 science classrooms in California and elsewhere, the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the most recent science education reform, promotes shifting away from formulaic instantiations of the scientific method (e.g., prescribed labs) to align with the way real scientists do their work. However, while NGSS presents exciting opportunities, it also presents challenges. First, teachers are asked to teach science in ways that they often have not experienced themselves. Second, curricular materials are limited as are professional learning opportunities for teachers. To address these challenges, this project brings together Lurie College's Teacher Education Department and College of Science's Science Education Program to support the professional learning and development of transformative science educators through participation in a Justice-Centered Science Teacher Collective.

• Perspectives on Culturally Sustaining Practices for Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication

  • Project Leaders

    - Alison Pentland - Faculty, Communicative Disorders and Sciences Department
    - Wendy Quach, PhD - Faculty, Communicative Disorders and Sciences Department

    Project Description

    This project will explore how professionals are supporting and can better support Black, Indigenous, and people of color who have severe communication needs. We intend to bring together individuals from these communities who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to express themselves. Researchers and moderators will conduct four semi-structured interviews and four focus groups virtually through video conferencing and asynchronous text-based discussion hosted in Canvas. The groups will include people who use AAC and their families, focusing on how their unique cultural and linguistic identities may be supported by the professionals who work with them (e.g. speech-language pathologists, educators, occupational therapists, etc.).

2020-2021 Strategic Plan Grants

During the Spring 2020 term, we coordinated a grant proposal process within our college to support endeavors by our faculty, students, and staff that advance our four priority areas. The six projects that have been awarded funding include:

• Creating an Inclusive Climate: Queering Our Classrooms and Our Campus
  • If you’re hoping to make your class, office, or programming more accessible for and supportive of your queer and trans students and coworkers, be on the lookout for upcoming training sessions and a professional learning community supported by the Strategic Plan Seed Grant. “Creating an Inclusive Climate: Queering Our Classrooms and Our Campus” represents a partnership between the Lurie College of Education and The LGBT Youth Space to offer introductory and advanced trainings at the department and college level around topics like pronouns and vocabulary terms, the hidden curriculum in our classes, and creating opportunities for authentic self-expression. We will also be hosting a Professional Learning Community for faculty and staff who want to more deeply engage in the work of transforming their corner of the campus into a queer-affirming space. For more information, please contact Dr. Robert Marx at robert.marx@sjsu.edu.

• Early Childhood Connections
  • Early Childhood Connections brings together a cohort of SJSU Lurie College of Education students and recent alumni from across disciplines, who are in pursuit of careers involving young children. Through virtual meetings, ECC provides a space for participants to cultivate relationships, build community, and learn from community partners. For more information, please contact the ECC Program Coordinator, Dr. Maria Fusaro, at maria.fusaro@sjsu.edu. 

• Education Leadership Minor

  • The SJSU undergraduate Minor in Transformative Leadership is an interdisciplinary approach to leadership development through engagement with anti-racist pedagogies and practices. By building a foundation and framework for developing an intersectional lens throughout this program, students develop their leadership goals around becoming transformative agents of change in their communities through meaningful, culturally affirming, and sustaining practices.

    Located in the SJSU Lurie College of Education's Department of Educational Leadership, the Transformative Leadership Minor prepares SJSU undergraduate students of all academic backgrounds to enact meaningful change in local, state, and national settings. If you have any questions about this minor, please email transformativeleadership-group@sjsu.edu.

• Healthy Development Clinic
  • The Healthy Development (HD) Clinic is a community-engaged, multidisciplinary clinic that will offer values-based, culturally sustaining, and trauma-informed care to children, youth, and families. The goal of the HD Clinic is to maximize the developmental, behavioral, and familial wellness of those served while providing interprofessional training to future professionals. This clinic is an active collaboration between SJSU’s Child and Adolescent Development, Speech-Language Pathology, and Psychology programs. For more information, please contact Dr. Cara Maffini at cara.maffini@sjsu.edu.

• Interprofessional Education Project
  • The Interprofessional Education Project group (Jason Laker (Counselor Education), Rebeca Burciaga (Educational Leadership); and Collette Rabin, Grinell Smith, and Lara Kassab (Teacher Education)), will be developing two interdisciplinary education courses to be offered College-wide. One will focus on socio-cultural foundations of education, and the other will introduce students to Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR), possibly in collaboration with a local School District or other educational or community organization. We will be consulting with faculty across the College to identify representative content, apprehend interest and support among our colleagues, and determine the elements needed for one or both courses to “count” toward various degree and credential programs. For more information, please contact Dr. Jason Laker at jlaker.sjsu@gmail.com.

• Interprofessional Summit
  • The interprofessional summit looks to create a collaborative learning opportunity for candidates in the departments of Communication Disorders and Sciences and Special Education. The goal of the summit is to connect students with current professionals in their fields and support the connections of theory and professional practice when it comes to working collaboratively. It is our hope that this summit can be a spark for our candidates in becoming agents of change for inclusion through interdisciplinary collaboration. For more information, contact Dr. Matthew Love at matthew.love@sjsu.edu.

Strategic Plan Steering Committee

• Lydia Arce - Graduate student, Counselor Education
• Sarah Arreola - Staff, Dean's Office
• Rebeca Burciaga, PhD - Professor, Educational Leadership
• Mayra Deleon - Undergraduate student, Communicative Disorders & Sciences
• Mark Felton, PhD - Professor, Teacher Education
• Heather Lattimer, EdD - Dean, Lurie College
• Shelly Masur - Doctoral student, EdD Leadership
• Ravisha Mathur, PhD - Associate Professor, Child & Adolescent Development
• Marcella McCollum - Lecturer, Communicative Disorders & Sciences; Doctoral student, EdD Leadership
• Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, PhD - Assistant Professor, Teacher Education
• Ana Paz-Rangel - Staff, Dean's Office
• Marcos Pizarro, PhD - Associate Dean, Lurie College
• Dena Sexton, PhD - Director of Field Experience, Teacher Education