UAFS adds master's program, will focus on training teachers

FILE — The bell tower on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith
FILE — The bell tower on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith

A new program is coming to the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith that is meant to help teachers further their careers.

The university announced last week that it has received approval from the Higher Learning Commission to offer a Master of Education degree. This will be UAFS' second master's program after its master's degree in health care administration, which the university's website states was approved by the Higher Learning Commission in July 2015. Classes for the program started that fall.

Monica Riley, executive director of the UAFS School of Education, said the first classes for the new master's program will begin this spring.

"I would say that it is a significant accomplishment for UAFS because we are moving the university forward, we're advancing the mission of the university," Riley said. "We are working hard to meet the needs of our constituents, and meeting the needs of our constituents is what a university is all about. So we believe that, with having a second master's, it is a step in the right direction for continuing to establish the outreach of the university to our community."

Before receiving approval from the Higher Learning Commission, Riley said, the School of Education reached out to, and conducted a needs analysis with, its community partners. They include 22 school districts in the area.

"We garnered their input to make determinations about what type of program that we were going to offer, and from that needs analysis, and also from research of best practices, we put together a program that we believe is going to begin to meet the needs of our school partners that will allow us to provide them with trained master's-level teachers to continue to reach the children in our area, in our K-12 environment," Riley said.

The School of Education determined it would begin with a Master of Education degree, Riley said. The two emphasis areas for this degree are curriculum and instruction, and English.

This 30-hour master's program is designed for students to take 12 hours of four core courses, Riley said. Those courses, which everybody in the program will take, are dedicated to action research, educational psychology, current and historical perspectives, and curriculum and design.

Riley said the remaining 18 hours of coursework will be different for the two emphasis areas, but the goals will be the same: to broaden the candidates' knowledge about their emphasis area, and to instruct the teaching of that knowledge.

Faculty from the English and education departments at UAFS collaborated to ensure the program's curriculum is closely in line with the assessment standards from the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, according to the news release. The program, Riley said, was designed to advance the career level of practicing K-12 teachers.

"We are reaching out to K-12 teachers at all of our partnership schools and encouraging them to pursue a master's degree with us at UAFS," she said.

Riley said about 258 undergraduates are currently enrolled in the UAFS School of Education.

One person applying for the Master of Education program is Allison Thompson of Fort Smith. Thompson graduated from UAFS in May with a Bachelor of Science in Middle Childhood Education.

Thompson said she had always wanted to further her education, but was never really sure in what field, or when to do it. However, it all became clear when this new opportunity was made available.

"I love the [undergraduate] program, I love the professors in the program," Thompson said. "They made me feel not just like a student, but a person. They cared about you academically, they cared about you emotionally, they cared about all aspects of you as a whole person. And so I knew that if this program was anything like the undergraduate program, that it was the right place for me."

State Desk on 09/30/2019

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