About the College of Education

Tradition, Engagement, Breakthrough, Impact.

These words are the hallmarks of how we measure our success every day.

Colleges of Education throughout the world are struggling to define their roles and change to meet a rapidly changing context. Over the past three years, the College of Education at Illinois has been engaged in an intensive strategic planning and implementation process that has involved our entire community, inviting input from faculty, staff, students, alumni, local educators and other key constituencies. Building on a one-hundred year foundation of excellence and the pioneering work of previous scholars, we have set a course for transformation that will increase our relevance and impact to society, improve operational efficiencies, and result in a College of Education that can lead the State of Illinois and the nation in the research, policy, and practice of teaching and learning..

Our Strategic Plan sets out the following five broad goals that establish a vision for the future of the College and its role in the broader mission of the Urbana-Champaign campus.

• Innovate and continue excellence in our core activities of research, teaching, and service.
• Diversify sources of and increasing overall operating income.
• Focus efforts on four strategic initiatives aligned to strategic campus goals for preeminence and to garner new external investment.
• Redevelop the intellectual foundations of the College to align our scholarship, culture, and practice with our strategies for growth.
• Revitalize our facilities and organizational culture.

Such a college will not just be a physical site for educational research, scholarship, and teaching, but the hub of a global network of collaborative relationships joining researchers, practitioners and professional colleagues, working together on shared initiatives that will improve education and serve the wider public good.

-- Dean Mary Kalantzis

Download the plan:
College of Education Strategic Plan Executive Summary (2007) - PDF, approx. 1MB

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