Education Dean Named Director of NCCPEP
Michael Alfano, dean of Sacred Heart University’s Farrington College of Education, has been named to the Council of Directors of The National Center for Clinical Practice in Educator Preparation (NCCPEP). Rene Roselle, director of teacher preparation at Sacred Heart, has also joined the Council. NCCPEP held its inaugural meeting of the Council at SHU’s West Campus.
“Both Dr. Roselle and I are ecstatic to be founding directors of the NCCPEP,” Alfano said. “Clinical practice is at the core of teacher preparation and by participating in this work, we’ll be able to stay on the cutting edge, working with faculty to continue to put the very best teacher preparation program forward to our students.”
NCCPEP, also referred to as “The Center,” will work with educator preparation programs (EPPs) and their PK-12 school partners to implement the foundations of clinical practice within local contexts. Clinical partnerships are the center point of effective clinical practice and are vital to ensuring the preparation of high-quality educators. Because of this, partnerships will serve as the central focus of The Center’s vision and mission.
“It is the perfect time for a center to be created and dedicated to support clinical practice partnerships. The education profession, including the preparation of teachers, is a complicated and political space that is experienced differently in each state,” Roselle said. “The Center draws on the rich and varying expertise of its directors and partners to provide individualized, site-specific support wherever a program might be situated in the clinical practice partnership continuum.”
Conceptually, The Center will focus work in the following categories to offer an array of comprehensive supports to advance the development of clinical programs. Members of the NCCPEP Council of Directors will each have responsibility for advising and leading development in these key areas:
- Clinical Partnership Development
- Coaching & Program Support
- Workshops & Professional Development
- Constituent Outreach & Engagement
- Research
- Clinical Practice Credentialing.
According to Rodrick Lucero, NCCPEP president & CEO, “We will provide implementation strategies, support and guidance to partnerships in their quest to establish robust, research-based, clinical preparation programs. It is within this paradigm that we believe we can address critical educator shortages in our nation while also recruiting and retaining more educators of color.”
The Center’s focus on partnership and collaborative learning affords a focused approach to expanding the impact and capacity of clinical educator preparation.
“Clinical practice affords opportunities for both candidates and mentor teachers to co-construct professional learning experiences in authentic contexts, which results in candidates who are better prepared to enter the classroom and therefore are more likely to stay longer in the profession,” said Amanda Lester, NCCPEP vice president & COO.
NCCPEP will work to support goals defined within local clinical partnerships in collaboration with clinical practice experts from around the country.
“We are thrilled about the tremendous excitement with which the launch of The Center has been met!” Lucero added. “The directors of The Center are committed to this work and are anxious to assist partnership sites in the implementation of clinical practice.”