COMMENTARY
Picking next education dean a crucial decision
By Sharon Mahoe
This commentary is part of a series of articles prepared by Voices of Educators, a nonprofit coalition designed to foster debate and public policy change within Hawai'i's public education system, in partnership with The Honolulu Advertiser. It appears in Focus on the first Sunday of the month.
Voices of Educators comprises of some of Hawai'i's top education experts, including: Liz Chun, executive director of Good Beginnings Alliance; Patricia Hamamoto, superintendent of the state Department of Education; Donald B. Young, of the College of Education, University of Hawai'i; Joan Lee Husted and Roger Takabayashi, from the Hawaii State Teachers Association; Sharon Mahoe of the Hawai'i Teacher Standards Board; Alvin Nagasako of the Hawai'i Government Employees Association; and Robert Witt of the Hawai'i Association of Independent Schools. Visit their Web site at www.hawaii.edu/voice.
The search for the University of Hawai'i College of Education's next dean is on: The feelers have been put out, a nationwide search has begun, and consultants have been bringing local groups together to seek out their ideas about what qualities the next dean should possess.
Conducting a national search is a good beginning. As the primary and largest producer of Hawai'i's teachers, the UH College of Education needs the best dean we can find. Our future teachers and students deserve no less.
As we screen the applicants for their scholarly achievements and meritorious accomplishments, what should we look for? In teacher preparation, we continually focus on the knowledge, skills and dispositions of a beginning teacher and, ultimately, of a highly accomplished teacher. We can apply these same concepts to the dean search, too.
Here are some of the qualifications we're looking for:
Of these three considerations, dispositions are the most intangible and most difficult to assess and document. But they also are most deserving of attention because they give us a glimpse into the core values and constitution of the dean. Seeing them helps us know if they reflect the values and qualities we seek in our dean.
We all know that Hawai'i is a special place. The next dean must help us to nurture and keep what we care about while we work to grow and improve. Using only knowledge and skills as targets will allow us to identify many good applicants, but digging deeper and more carefully for dispositions will help us find the dean who is right for Hawai'i.
Our next dean must not just care about education, but also about Hawai'i. The dean must not just observe and learn what we value, how we think, how we behave, but also embody our values and motivate us to tap our uniqueness to reach increasingly higher goals.
The UH College of Education must make the right choice because this position serves a broader community beyond the college. Unlike with other colleges and departments of the university, the dean of the College of Education plays a special role for all Hawai'i's educators. That person is an advocate for public education and quality teaching, and is a key source of knowledge and research that can tip the scale in favor of sound public policy.
The person chosen for the job will play a key role in deciding the next steps for how teachers are prepared to teach, how teachers will affect student learning, and how teachers will maintain their skills through UH professional development opportunities. The dean also will have a role in determining how the college supports our schools, works with the community and promotes learning.
Once the selection is made, we need to work with the dean to ensure quality conditions, quality teachers and quality experiences for our students.
