School of Education
Dr. Donald Gnecco, Dean
Dr. Julie Palmour, Associate Dean (Demorest)
Dr. Clay Crowder, Associate Dean (Athens)
Faculty
Dean Gnecco
Associate Deans Palmour and Crowder
Professors Benson, Berrong, A. Brown, W. Brown, Lucado, McCollum, Rettig, Rogers, Samuelsen, Secules, Shirley, Smith-Patrick, and Welsh
Professors Emeritus Andrews, Briggs, Kibler, McFerrin, H.Smith
Senior Fellows Breithaupt, Busbee, McCain, and D. Smith
Associate Professors Betz, I. Crowder, Gannon, Hollandsworth, Hutcheson-Williams, Jordan, Rambo, Short, Southall, Tavernier, Tucker, and Turpin
Fellow Carmack
Assistant Professors Clinton, Goss, Griffin, Land, Mapp, Nixon, and Sears
Instructor Willis
Preparing proactive educators to improve the lives of all children.
Mission
The School of Education offers a variety of undergraduate and graduate programs to prepare teachers at the initial and advanced levels. Programs of study include undergraduate programs in Early Childhood Education, Middle Grades Education, Secondary Education, Art Education, Spanish Education, Educational Studies, and Drama Education. Graduate programs at both the initial and advanced certification levels include master’s programs in Art Education, Early Childhood Education, Middle Grades Education, Music Education, four content areas in Secondary Education, Instructional Technology, and Special Education. The School also offers the Education Specialist and Doctor of Education degrees in Curriculum and Instruction.
The theme of the School of Education is “Mastering the art of teaching: Preparing proactive educators to improve the lives of all children.” The School of Education strives to prepare scholarly, reflective, proactive educators in a caring environment with challenging and meaningful learning experiences. These practitioners effectively educate their own students to become knowledgeable, inquisitive, and collaborative learners in diverse, democratic learning communities.
Specific ideals support our conceptual framework. We advocate the democratic ideals of: equal rights and opportunities; individual freedom and responsibility; responsibility for the greater good; respect for diversity; openness to possibilities; and open, informed discourse.
We endorse the following processes as a means of striving for our democratic ideals: engaging in participatory decision-making; collaborating in teaching and learning; collecting information from all constituencies; examining options and projecting consequences; nurturing open discourse; providing for field experiences; assessing processes as well as products; modeling democratic ideals in the classroom; forming communities of learners; and constantly revising the curriculum to reflect new insights and understandings. Further, we endorse the development of a sense of personal integrity and of strong habits of mind (e.g., reflectiveness, persistence, clarity, accuracy, and responsiveness to feedback).
Students’ Responsibility
Students must assume full responsibility for knowledge of the policies, rules, and regulations of the School of Education and the College, and of departmental requirements concerning their individual programs. Students are also responsible for meeting deadlines as published on the College website. In no case will a regulation be waived or an exception be granted because a student pleads ignorance of the regulation or asserts that the individual was not informed of a specific requirement by an advisor or other College personnel.
All Piedmont students are required to utilize the Piedmont email system for the dissemination of information by the administration. Students are responsible for all information distributed in this manner. Additionally, information for students is posted in the School of Education Student Bulletin Board website.
Continuation and completion of all programs is contingent upon demonstration of the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to help all students learn as described in the School of Education Conceptual Framework and Candidate Program Learning Outcomes. Piedmont College reserves the right to withdraw a teacher candidate from teacher education for failure to meet these outcomes.
Students must be knowledgeable about professional ethics and social behavior appropriate for school and community, and they must also have specific knowledge about the Georgia Code of Ethics for Educators.
Regulations, program requirements, and procedures are subject to change pending rules of the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. Programs of study leading to certification are approved by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission.