From the Office of the Provost
Episode 18: Growth, Partnership, and Opportunity at the School of Education
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Joe McCarthy: Hello and welcome to “From the Office of the Provost,” a podcast that highlights exciting activities and initiatives in the Office of the Provost or University-wide that bolster and enhance our collective vision for growth and transformation. I'm your host, Provost Joe McCarthy, and today I'm joined by Eboni Zamani-Gallaher, the Renée and Richard Goldman Dean of the School of Education.
Eboni has led the school since May of 2024 when I got her to agree to serve as the interim dean in the 2023 to 2024 academic year. Prior to that, when she first joined Pitt, she was serving as the Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Strategic Partnerships within the school. And in that role, she worked to advance equitable partnerships, strengthen teaching and academic programs, and reimagine the school's engagement with its partners and communities.
Her work also extends well beyond Pitt. Ebony is the executive director of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, a national organization that brings together university-based researchers and community college practitioners to advance scholarship for community colleges.
Through that work and through her leadership at Pitt, she's been deeply engaged in strengthening connections across higher ed, in particular between four-year institutions and community colleges, and ultimately creating more effective pathways for students.
Welcome, Eboni.
Eboni Zamani-Gallaher: Thank you. It's good to be here.
McCarthy: So let's jump right in. The School of Education is, as we all know, the top ranked public school of education in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And in fact, it's ranked among the top 30 nationally by the U.S. News and World Report. So I'd like you to reflect on your first couple of years now as dean and tell me what's emerged as your key priorities.
How are you taking those priorities and shaping those through your vision for the school's future?
Zamani-Gallaher: Sure, thanks. I'd love to share some of our key priorities, some strategic priorities that we have for the school.
You know, what has resulted is really kind of an outgrowth of my work over the last 25-plus years in terms of some of those priorities about how we can further strengthen our partnerships. We take pride and are peacock proud about how we do work with and for communities.
And with the University very much leaning into its community engagement thread, we have been looking to further our efforts in that regard. So with the community, with industry, with partners, with our new programs, and also some of our existing programs, we are also prioritizing how we can increase our research funding. We want to continue to grow and support faculty and staff.
We're also thinking about our enrollment and in growing that enrollment through some targeted recruitment strategies that will provide more streamlined scholarship processes, as well as increasing our marketing and communications, and also working with populations that historically had not supported, if you will, very intentionally. So strengthening our transfer student pathways are among some of the priorities that we have.
McCarthy: Excellent. So along the way, you mentioned, you mentioned communities. The School of Education has a broad role in preparing educators, conducting research, and as you pointed out, is really one of the leaders here at Pitt in partnering with the community beyond the University.
How do you see the school's role in addressing some of the challenges and opportunities facing education today?
Zamani-Gallaher: I think our school plays a very key role in the sense that when we think about our mission and our vision, among the things that we ascribe to is we want to make sure that we expand opportunities, that we broaden participation. We want to make sure that we agitate and we elevate while we educate.
And so some of the work that we do in terms of, in concert with school districts, as in relationship to professional development opportunities, drive-ins, workshops with teachers.
We certainly are very much furthering partnership through addressing the teacher shortage in our local area, in the state, in the region.
As a part of the blueprint for higher education that our governor laid before us, we know that one area in particular that has a critical shortage is early childhood education. And so we have been doubling up on our efforts to produce more pre-service teachers, not just in early childhood, but also in the elementary and secondary areas, as well as in math and science education and career technical education. So we're really trying to figure out a way to enhance what is the to and through for learners from the cradle to the grave.
McCarthy: Workforce has certainly been an important target for the University and the School of Education really answers the bell, so to speak. So I appreciate that.
Let's turn for a moment to your own personal research area. Your work, as we mentioned in the intro, has focused in large part on strengthening pathways between community colleges and four-year institutions. And you've been a really significant player in transfer, which you and I shared when I was trying to entice you to serve as interim dean, that that's a passion of mine as well.
What makes transfer such an important part of the conversation around student success more broadly?
Zamani-Gallaher: Transfer is a wonderful conduit and a catalyst for students to further their goals and have more mobility, whether it be educationally, economically.
When we look at the data decade after decade, and we look at student aspirations and the extent to which they want post-secondary in their future, by and large, students are aspiring [to get] a baccalaureate degree or more. But more often than not, particularly if students are first-generation, students [who] are coming from living at the poverty level or low income, we have various subgroups that post-secondary isn't necessarily within reach or realized, or the only post-secondary opportunity that is made available is at the community college. And the community colleges have been wonderful partners in terms of helping students to further their education, to have for employment.
And so we think that it is critical to think through what could be ways to have strategies for, let's say, an incremental credentialing pathway where students can get credentials of value, where we can make sure that not only can they self-actualize, but they can have a family sustained wage and they can have mobility to go further.
And so I think at places like Pitt, what is really interesting and wonderful at this point is that while we're a research-intensive institution, we also are an institution that wants to move the needle on mobility. And we're an institution that prides itself in meeting the needs of community and wanting to work very closely with community relative to what their aims and goals are and to be a partner in, again, that coming to fruition.
And so transfer is a critical piece of the puzzle so that we can, again, broaden participation, can help folks to move in and through, and be successful.
And success looks different for a lot of different populations. But certainly it is the case where some students would not be able to have the careers they so desire or be able to have the degrees and cross the stage of a four-year institution had it not been for a community college.
And we're looking at right about now where four-fifths or more of students, when you ask them, what do you aspire in terms of educational goals? They want that baccalaureate or beyond. But we see small percentages transfer. And so that's something we definitely want to work to bolster so that we can have more successful outcomes and the students have the experiences they like to kind of bridge between our two-year sister campuses and ours.
McCarthy: And for any of our listeners that are community college students at the moment, I want you to hear and listen that Pitt is a friendly place. Pitt is designed in part to serve your needs. So reach out and consider finishing up at Pitt.
Part of the reason I can say that and honestly say that is because we do have excellent community colleges here in the Commonwealth. And, and one of the things that I think has been a hallmark of your leadership as dean is you brought together educators from across the Commonwealth as well as leaders in education in a not-even-so-new-anymore Transfer Pathways Summit that's now, I think, occurred three times and is an annual staple for some of these folks.
Can you tell us a little bit more about that gathering and, and what you have accomplished and aim to accomplish with that effort?
Zamani-Gallaher: Yeah, that's heart work for me. It's a point of pride, and it's one of those things that I think is good for the Commonwealth.
And so to your point, this year was our third annual Transfer Pathway Summit. Our theme was maximizing transfer value and fueling student mobility and success.
Each of the summits, we have a day-long opportunity for folks from both community colleges, four-year institutions, from our state boards, PDE folks are there. We have such a wonderful mix, and we have folks that are external to our state. So educators coming from West Virginia and Kentucky and Ohio.
We are very much about, how do we talk about some of the unique barriers, opportunities related to transfer. We look at how we can accelerate pathways into higher ed and so some of the things that we touch on during our time is dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment opportunities in terms of college and high school.
We talk about ways in which students can have increased wraparound support services. We talk about advising. We talk about time to degree. We talk about finances because price point is always something that is of interest to talk about, articulation agreements. So there's any number of various things that are discussed throughout the day.
We also feature keynote speakers that are national experts and leaders in the area of transfer student success.
One of the high points is always hearing from the students themselves. And so each year we've had a panel of current and former transfer students to share directly with our attendees how they are navigating between community college and four-year.
McCarthy: You mentioned PDE, and I just want to share with our audience that when I've met with Pennsylvania Department of Ed. leaders, they've in fact known you and known you certainly more often than they've known me. So it's really, I think, gratifying for Pitt as an institution to have a transfer scholar and now an educational leader running this and really serving this important need. for the Commonwealth and as you said, beyond. So thank you for that work.
If we could give our listeners a bit of a teaser as you continue to lead the School of Education, what's on the horizon? What's next for Dean Zamani-Gallagher and Pitt’s School of Ed.?
Zamani-Gallaher: There's a lot of fun things in store in our future. I think that we continue to be privileged to be the top ranked school of education in the state. We're for at least 10 years in a row now, we're number one in terms of a public school of education.
McCarthy: Can we get the victory lights turned on for that?
Zamani-Gallaher: No, go ahead, make them bright so that all the folks can see, but we're very happy about that. But you know, we're mostly happy about what we can provide our students by way of experience.
One of the things that has happened and that's on the horizon and I think will continue to be the case is trying to get a better footprint in online education.
We have currently a partnership with Pitt EDGE out of the Office of the Provost to have our infant mental health master's degree. So we're doing it as a stackable. We're rolling out this year, this academic year, the graduate certificate. There'll be a second graduate certificate, each of which roll into and stack into a master's for early childhood infant mental health. Again, kind of aligning with what is an area that's not saturated, where there's high student interest, high employer demand, local, state, regional, national need. So we are very excited about that.
I think on the horizon this will continue to carry some momentum in the areas that we already shine and try to just be 10 toes down and being good in those areas.
Our [educational psychology] program continues to rise. It's in the top 20, it's ranked number 17 now up from 23 last year. So I think when we talk about top 20 programs at Pitt, and you've noted this more often than not, folks have a knee-jerk reaction and think about the health sciences, but there are other areas and then other colleges and schools beyond medicine that are cracking at that top 20.
We jumped 45 spots just this last year and on the horizon, I imagine we will continue to climb with relationship to the online piece. And so we broke the top 100, because we're still new in that space. So we're looking forward to growing in that regard.
We’ve got anniversaries happening. Our Office of Child Development, we're celebrating 40 years, and they've done in excess of $55 million in external funding in the last five years. So they've done some great work.
We have a Justice Scholars Institute. That is a point of pride for us, they just had a 10-year anniversary. I'm looking forward to celebrating more as we move into the fall.
There's a series of different culminating events beyond the new infant mental health certificate, One of the things on the horizon is we have just added, effective this semester, a new 14-credit track into our existing curriculum for our Bachelor's of Science and Exercise Science. That is great. We're doing a new strength and conditioning track for that major. It continues to have year-over-year increases in terms of enrollment growth for us.
We also have added a new distinction in terms of our exercise science program relative to ACSM. It's called the gold status. So we achieve that and we're one of 91 institutions where our program has gold status for exercise as medicine. So, medicine program on our campus and so, that gold status is the highest designation. So we love that that's on the horizon for us as well.
McCarthy: It goes with the blue really well.
Zamani-Gallaher: Yes, it definitely goes with the blue very well. So those are just some of the things that are brewing, not to mention six new micro credentials, graduate micro credentials, three of which are what we call the small C and three more that are graduate certificates within higher ed, one of which is a community college leadership one.
And speaking of community colleges, for those students, Provost just said, you know, if you want to complete at Pitt, we're an upper division school. We have lots of wonderful opportunities for you to complete your bachelor's with us in several areas. And we also have transfer community college transfer student scholarships in our School of Ed.
But we're, on our horizon, I would say, experiencing a shift in culture a bit. We have a college, a school that is 116 years old and for the lion's share of our history, a school that has been graduate education centric.
Say 10 years ago, we had about 15% of our students were undergraduates. As of this week, 40% of our students enrolled are undergraduates. And so as we have that 60-40 split of graduate and undergraduate, I see moving into the future in terms of what's on the horizon, additional growth opportunities and enhancements for undergraduate education in our school.
McCarthy: I really love [that we’re] being responsive to the market. We recognize that there's a need in the undergraduate space for the exercise science, for the ed psych, for the teacher education, and you guys have answered the call for that, which I think is really valuable. I love the infant mental health. This is a program that is a win across the board, right? It's more affordable. It's more convenient. It's answering a workforce need. It's answering student demand. It's the sweet spot.
Zamani-Gallaher: It is the sweet spot because our goal is no time lost, no credits lost. We are very happy to see that we could lower the price point that we can, we talk about this tagline of It's Possible at Pitt, that we can make it possible for folks that aren't just within our vicinity in terms of Western PA by moving online. And so that lower price point, no credits lost, no time lost, lots more to gain has been great.
McCarthy: I appreciate the opportunity to continue to educate that Pitt is a “yes, and” kind of place. I've been quoted, I think, a number of times as stating that Pitt has 20 programs in the top 20. Now that you guys had the ed psych just crack into that I might have to change my narrative a little bit.
But it's “yes, and” because, as you pointed out, we really have excellence across all the domains. We have health science excellence, we have educational excellence, we have STEM excellence, we have social science excellence everywhere you look.
So I appreciate you getting a lot of that out there, but I know that our listeners are going to be hungry to learn more than what we could have covered in this short conversation.
So for those that are interested in learning more, how can they stay connected with you and the school?
Zamani-Gallaher: Well, they can visit our website. I'm on LinkedIn. Our school has its own Instagram account, Facebook account, and you can keep in touch with me and us through those.
McCarthy: Thank you so much, Eboni, for joining me today and sharing the great work that you and your team are doing in the School of Education.
And as always, thank you, listeners, for tuning in. I'm Provost Joe McCarthy, and this has been “From the Office of the Provost.”
Zamani-Gallaher: Thanks, Joe.
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