About Us

Thank you for visiting the College of Education and Professional Studies website. Our college is a large and diverse unit serving nearly 5,000 students pursuing degrees in the 27 undergraduate and 14 graduate degree programs offered within our college. Our college mission is developing individuals and delivering programs and services to meet the needs of the professional communities served by the college. A profile that provides a quick overview of our college can be accessed here.

The College of Education and Professional Studies has a long and proud history. UCO was founded as the Territorial Normal School in 1890 with a mission of preparing teachers. As the first and one of the largest teacher preparation institutions in the state, our college has the distinction of being one of very few institutions to have been accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education for over 50 years. The motto of our Teacher Education Program is Emphasizing the 3 R's since 1890. The traditional 3 R's of reading, writing and arithmetic have been replaced by reflective, responsive and resourceful, the three areas of competency that are the core of our conceptual framework (Preparing outstanding professionals who are reflective, responsive and resourceful throughout their professional careers and belief systems).

Our college includes many talented faculty and staff members who are well qualified and effective (over 80% of classes are taught by faculty members who have both extensive practical experience as professionals in their respective fields and earned doctoral degrees appropriate to their teaching discipline). A hallmark of our college and campus is the personal attention and care faculty and staff members provide to students. The quality of our programs are validated in various ways including many national and regional accreditation bodies and numerous ongoing program improvement processes that regularly make use of data collected from students, graduates, and employers of our graduates. Much more can be found about various ways we assess and evaluate our work and how we continually adapt to environmental changes on our Quality Indicators section.

I trust that you will experience these attributes in us and let us know what we can do to help you be successful. Enjoy navigating the various areas on our college website and contact us to let us know how we can help you. Thank you for visiting our site.

Sincerely,
James R. Machell, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Education and Professional Studies

Accreditations, Accountability and Accomplishments

Accreditations – Our programs are nationally accredited by:

• American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL)
• American Library Association/American Association of School Librarians (ALA/AASL)
• Association for Education Communications and Technology (AECT)
• Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI)
• Council for Exceptional Children (CEC)
• Council for Standards in Human Service Education (CSHSE)
• Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC)
• International Reading Association (IRA)
• National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
• National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)
• National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)
• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)
• National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
• National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)
• National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)
• Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)