About Us
Welcome to the School of Education at Boston University
From its founding in 1918, the Boston University School of Education has been committed to both the preparation of educators and the advancement of research and scholarship. Our graduate programs reflect this dual commitment. We offer programs leading to initial licensure as a teacher, counselor, or administrator, as well as programs of advanced studies for practitioners and scholars. This dual commitment is also reflected in our faculty, who combine practical classroom expertise and scholarly attainments. We see these two aspects of our work as a natural and necessary combination: either would be diminished by the absence of the other. The scholarly work deepens and enriches the preparation of educators; and the preparation of educators tethers scholarship to the realities of practice.
The connection of theory and practice is a defining characteristic of the School of Education and of Boston University. Perhaps no other university in America has a stronger and more enduring involvement in education at all levels. For more than fifteen years, Boston University managed an entire urban school district under a contract with the School Committee of Chelsea, Massachusetts. Boston University also has had a long-standing involvement with the Boston Public Schools. Over the past quarter century, faculty from the School of Education and other parts of the University have worked with Boston teachers and administrators to strengthen curriculum and instruction in a number of Boston schools with special partnerships at English High School and the Trotter Elementary School.
The intellectual life of the School is enriched in a variety of ways. We publish the oldest continuously published journal in the field of education in the country, the Journal of Education. The Boston University Conference on Language Development, regarded as the leading international conference in the field, takes place on campus every fall, with the active involvement of faculty and students from the School of Education. Two centers are also affiliated with the School: the Center for the Advancement of Ethics & Character and the Center for Communication & Deafness.
The School of Education is committed to education and practices that foster ecological sustainability. Through a unique, energetic, and always expanding collective of faculty, students, and staff known as sedGreen, we have installed solar panels and a small wind turbine as part of an educational demonstration project; embarked on an important energy-reduction campaign; developed a high-compliance recycling program; demonstrated human and bike power within renewable energy and good health objectives; partnered with the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the northwest Amazon to further conservation biology education; and we constantly strive toward making sustainability thinking a part of the fabric of our many courses and policies. Anyone who joins the SED community can become part of this important effort.
The School of Education is a small school within a large university. As a small school—about 400 undergraduates and 500 graduate students—we sustain a strong sense of community. Students and faculty get to know one another, and we all take an interest in one another’s well-being. But we also have available to us the resources of a major university: libraries, laboratories, lectures, concerts, and an abundance of courses and faculty in a wide range of academic disciplines and professional fields. And we are situated in the heart of one of the world’s great cities, with a rich history and a wealth of cultural institutions: the Boston Public Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Science Museum, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as theatre, dance, opera, film, and, of course, the Red Sox two blocks away!
An abiding passion for teaching and learning runs through our School. We go about our work with a dedication and enthusiasm born of the belief that what we are doing matters deeply. And we bring to this work the good cheer that accompanies a labor of love. Here, too, our sense of community is evident, as each contributes to and is uplifted by the spirit of the School.
We take pride in resisting what is merely fashionable in educational thought and practice. To the constant demands for and claims of “innovation,” we bring a measure of skepticism, recognizing that the latest is not necessarily the best. And we resist, too, ideological approaches that judge ideas and practices by their conformity to a particular dogma. No idea should be ruled out of court simply because it is unfashionable; and no idea should prevail unless it can withstand the test of critical inquiry.
Lively discussion and trying ideas out in practice help to keep the School of Education a lively and engaging community.
