College of Education Outreach

Speaker Spotlight Series

The COE Diversity Committee facilitates the Speaker Spotlight Series, highlighting faculty and student experiences, expertise, awards, achievements, and research in the area of diversity, inclusion, and equity. 

If you are interested in being a speaker or if you have suggestions for topics you would like to see featured, please contact Dr. Meyers-Ellett at meyersa@nsuok.edu. 

Spotlight #1: Disabilities & Inclusion and the RiverHawks Scholar Program

Recruitment and Retention of Diverse Students, Faculty and Administration

It is our goal to maintain a diverse culture in our college. We do so to build upon the belief that our faculty promotes leadership, skill and ability and research with respect to their area of discipline.

We actively seek faculty who represent a broad array of diverse backgrounds including racial and ethnic variations, sexual orientation, and gender equality. Because it is important for us to work to maintain diversity in the student population we ask each faculty member within the college to provide service in local schools for 10 hours per semester.

This engagement assists K-12 common education students to see a reality that they too can achieve a positive future.

College of Education Recruitment & Retention Plan 2023 (pdf)

Cultural and Global Experiences

Our programs utilize best practices by incorporating our conceptual framework and identifying ways to invest in the communities our university serves through meaningful experiences and internships that are immersed in global connections and partnerships.

Candidates speak personally to visiting scholars, interact with diverse cultures through student exchanges, and connect Common Core curriculum to global topics through lived experiences and personal connections.

Our international clinical faculty rate our candidates highly in classroom teaching and values their ability to quickly integrate into a culture quite different from their own. Candidates reflect on their experience and report this reflection as a part of the internship.

The internship experiences, immersion in varied cultures and activities, and travel abroad are planned events in each academic year. The impact of a global perspective is reflected in the reflections of candidates on issues facing educators such as bullying, social media, technology, and parent involvement.

Through international and global experiences, a wealth of information from a variety of cultures and people is gleaned, helping shape the intent and focus of our candidates in addressing these global concerns facing educators today.

Each of these efforts are ongoing and a part of the vision, mission, and strategic plan of the College. We work collaboratively within the College to ensure that our current students and graduates are equipped with the tools to carry out careers with excellence.

Dr. Vanessa Anton serves as a leader to provide avenues for collaboration. Evidence of this is the continuous inclusion of an international and global perspective in classes, internships and collaboration with diverse cultures in numerous aspects of the Unit's programs.

SKILLS

SKILLS (Seeking Knowledge & Immersive Learning in a Suburban setting) is a unique non-traditional option designed for teacher candidates to have the opportunity to intern on a suburban campus in south Tulsa (Jenks Public Schools) with 1530 students and more than 30 languages represented.

During this option, interns will also have the opportunity to participate in a STEAM lab and experience all the exciting things children are learning through a Community School Approach.

This program provides a field-based clinical experience in a suburban public school. Students are in the classroom for a minimum of 12 full days, once a week, during the semester. Students complete the internship requirement, EDUC 3313, and EDUC 3113 co-currently during the one day per week on-site attendance.

TURN

TURN (Teaching & Urban Reform Network) is a unique non-traditional option designed to collaboratively pair beginning teacher candidates with top performing urban schools in Tulsa Public School District.

This option focuses on a cadre of caring, committed, and creative individuals who want to teach specifically in urban schools. This “out of the box” approach to becoming a teacher allows the selected candidates to immerse themselves in college coursework at the urban school site. The teacher candidates join theory with practice and apply knowledge during their initial Pre-Internship I experience.

This program provides a field-based clinical experience in an urban public school located in the Tulsa Metro area. Students are in the classroom for a minimum of 12 full days, once a week, during the semester. Students complete the internship requirement, EDUC 3313, and EDUC 3113 co-currently during the one day per week on-site attendance.

KIPP Tulsa College Preparatory Academy 

We host an annual outreach and partnership with the KIPP Tulsa College Preparatory Academy. Each August, we bring 90 students in the current 7th grade class at KIPP to participate in a major outreach opportunity. We pair the students with diverse faculty from across the institution and share programs with them. The students work with volunteers in the Association of Black Collegians, the Japanese Exchange Students and the university liaison for diversity. In addition, the classes focus on math, science, and anthropology to engage them in fields where there is an under-representation of ethnic diversity.

Our university (Tahlequah) includes two additional branch campuses (Broken Arrow & Muskogee). We have locations in every major area of need residents, commuters and families. To serve as a resource to the communities where our campuses our housed we have two thriving literacy centers.

Cappi Wadley Literacy Center

On the Tahlequah campus, through a private donation of $1.2 million dollars, we erected the Cappi Wadley Literacy Center. This new facility is equipped with the latest technology, reading materials, teaching tools, parent training room, and small group reading classrooms. The grand opening was this fall semester. The Northeastern State University main Tahlequah campus is located in one of the poorest communities in northeast Oklahoma. The Wadley Literacy Center has already helped several school districts through nightly tutoring offerings and parent resources on parent night. These efforts have been sustainable and we serve as an example for other reading programs across the nation. Many top reading faculty and researchers have visited our centers to see the long term impact that we are creating.

Contact: Dr. Tobi Thompson, Director

Broken Arrow Literacy Clinic

The Broken Arrow Literacy Clinic is on the Broken Arrow campus and is a hub for schools, teachers, and parents. In one year, the Broken Arrow literacy clinic served 367 students of varying diverse backgrounds to improve reading proficiency and receive direct one-to-one instruction with trained reading specialist and pre-service teachers. The Broken Arrow literacy clinic has observation rooms and trained directors to assist with student feedback and teach parenting classes on ways to improve their own children's reading skills at home.

Contact: Dr. Ingrid Massey, Director

Our efforts have resulted in the passion of candidates extended to seek external international placements and diverse settings for employment that previously would not have been considered from their previous experiences with diversity and culture. Our reading centers feature tutoring based on diverse populations, to include those community members, students, and other stakeholders who are not native English speakers.

Celebration of Teaching

Imagine, one day celebrating the very best in teaching and paying honor to the annually awarded Oklahoma district teachers of the year. Through a grant sponsored by the Oklahoma Regents for Higher Education, Northeastern State hosts a conference with 500 participants from across the state.

We bring students from 3rd through 12th grade who have indicated a desire to enter the teaching field in their future and provide breakout sessions with nationally recognized teachers. Additionally, the students hear a keynote from the United States National Teacher of the Year and enjoy a lunch which includes round-table discussions on the importance and benefits of choosing teacher education as a career.

We evaluate this event and our responses show significant factors which indicate student's preference or desire to pursue elementary and secondary education is solidified after this conference.

Lastly, we emulate best practices by integrating topics of innovation in the breakout sessions. Most of the students who attend are first generation college students and are presented hands on workshops on robotics, kinesthetic learning, team building and technology.

Tribal Heritage and Cross-Generational Connection

We work diligently with the largest American Indian tribe, the Cherokee Nation. Several faculty members work with the common education components of the Cherokee Nation and provide professional development and service learning through our partnership amd through our baccalaureate degree in Cherokee Language.

This is a unique program and could not have been possible without a formal partnership with tribal leaders. In recognition of the respect we give the Cherokee Elders, many of the seminar course offerings include teaching from members of the tribe.

The program director works with secondary majors and is a member of the Cherokee Nation. The cultural component of this program has gained national attention and has been positively received in the community.

Little Rowdy Child Care Center

Little Rowdy Child Care Center is a campus-based drop in childcare facility located on the NSU-Broken Arrow Campus in the Education building, BAED 139.

We are open to the children of full-time or part-time NSUBA students during class hours.

Children of the ages of 8 weeks to 8 years old are able to receive services for no more than 3 hours each day and student parents may not leave campus while their child(ren) are attending Little Rowdy.

Visit the website for more information.

Milken Educator Mentorship

The goal of the program is to create connections to inspire and support future educators. Download the flyer here or contact Dr. Kelli Carney at carneyka@nsuok.edu for more information.