Welcome

A Message from the Dean

As Dean of the Boston University School of Education, I have the honor of greeting you, a prospective student. If you are thumbing through these pages, you are doing so because you have a serious interest in the profession of education. I hope you are called to the work of educating children, youths, and adults.

From birth, we accumulate debts to those who care for us and give us guidance and instruction. We repay those debts by caring for parents and elders who may grow dependent on us. We also repay debts by doing for succeeding generations what our forebears did for us.

Schools are essential to this moral equation. As parents and citizens we provide for the education of children. We rely on professional educators to do this critical work. In accepting the call to teach, you agree to take on this social obligation.

This means, first of all, that you must nurture in the young sound habits and strong, refined powers of mind. You must also be diligent, humble in the face of persuasive evidence, civil, and attuned to the hopes, fears, and needs of others. Those who teach teachers accept the same responsibility.

The School of Education is a repository of accumulated knowledge that is the currency with which we meet obligations that transcend generations. It is also a sanctuary for research that tests received wisdom.

We have here at Boston University a tradition of direct engagement in public education that grounds our understanding of teaching and learning in hard-won experience. We have a long-standing commitment to high standards of admission and graduation.

Our distinguished and committed faculty teach with great competence. Members of our faculty have established a variety of strong programs in school and non-school settings. Among these are programs for intergenerational literacy, character education, early childhood education, and the teaching of English as a second language. We maintain partnerships with other divisions of the University and with public school systems. And our students enjoy the cultural, civic, and historic advantages of our location in the heart of Boston.

We invite you to enter our School of Education, to accept the challenges of the teaching profession, and to honor the obligations to those who have gone before us by educating those who will follow.

Douglas Sears
Dean