DBU College of Education Receives New Accreditation

DBU's Dorothy M. Bush College of Education's Educator Preparation Program (EPP) is proud to announce that on March 5, 2024, the Association for Advancing Quality Educator Preparation (AAQEP) awarded national accreditation to all certification programs in the EPP. This accreditation includes all undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs that prepare educators for certification in the areas of teacher, school counselor, reading specialist, educational diagnostician, principal, and superintendent.

The College of Education's EPP was first awarded national accreditation in 2017 through the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). However, at that time, CAEP only had the capacity to approve initial teacher certification programs. As the College of Education's EPP began the trek towards its second national accreditation, the aspiration was to ensure that all certification programs (initial, advanced, and doctoral) received this endorsement. It was also crucial for the COE to choose an accrediting body that would allow the DBU distinctives and COE story to be told effectively. The COE faculty and staff chose the AAQEP process, as they desired to ensure the distinctives that make the DBU EPP unique were able to be fully communicated, such as the DBU's distinctive of being a Christ-centered university developing Christian leaders who will reflect Christ's light to the students and colleagues they are and will be serving in the education setting in which God has called them. The COE's faculty and staff also wanted to ensure the accreditation reflected the high-quality education, pedagogy, content, and faculty (full and part-time) that EPP candidates would engage with and experience through their careers at DBU.

"The AAQEP accreditation awarded to the DBU College of Education is a testament to the hard work the COE faculty have put into these programs. This accreditation provides an avenue for an even higher quality program where students can develop and become Christ-centered educators"—Dr. Norma Hedin, Provost.

Seeking this second national accreditation through AAQEP has been a rich journey of collaboration between all certification programs in the EPP across DBU and with our local partners. The Educator Preparation Program Advisory Board (EPPAB), made up of representatives from the COE faculty and staff; other DBU college faculty, school districts (public and private), current students, alumni, community, and businesses over the last several years, has contributed greatly to this accreditation process. So much so, the collaboration between the COE's EPP and the EPPAB membership was recognized through a commendation that reads, "Commendation: The breadth and depth of comprehensive support for candidates and completers, and the use of data from internal and external stakeholders to inform this support, is evident across the preparation programs."

The COE's EPP is grateful to DBU and the DBU family for providing the support and encouragement needed to persevere through the accreditation process. Seeking national accreditation through the AAQEP process provided the initial, advanced, and doctoral program opportunities to identify both areas of strength and improvement.

"We know God has so many wonderful plans for the DBU College of Education. The AAQEP national accreditation will spotlight the wonderful work DBU is doing to prepare Christ-centered servant leaders for the professions in which God has called them. Most importantly for the COE, this honor will assist in bringing and preparing those candidates God has called who desire to serve in the pre-kindergarten through twelfth-grade education settings for His purpose and glory!" — Dean of the College of Education, Dr. DeAnna Jenkins.