Dr. Scott Bailey, Assistant Provost of Education Programs at the American College of Education (ACE) joins us to discuss the partnership between ACE and Rio Salado College, specifically in regards to educator preparation students. Dr. Bailey praises the enthusiasm that Rio Salado has for their partnership and how that is reinforced by the collaborative and seamless nature of what ACE offers students completing Rio Salado's teacher preparation post-bacc programs. Through this partnership, students moving on to ACE for a masters degree in education are able to complete the degree in as little as one year and for well under $10k.

The other benefits of ACE's education programs, both at the masters and doctoral levels, is that they are designed and taught by educators for educators. This allows students to have confidence not only in the applicable nature of what they are learning, but also in knowing that their instructors understand the day-to-day challenges of being a teacher. To learn more about ACE and their many degree offerings, please visit ACE.edu.

In this episode we hear from Dr. Melodie Baker of Impact Stats on how community colleges can use data to adapt and continuously improve educator preparation programs. Of particular interest is the teaching of math. With many candidates unable to pass the math portion of licensing exams, even if they've taken developmental math courses, there is clear evidence that focusing on a co-requisite model is more effective in boosting the math skills of teacher candidates and of all students.

Data can also be used to identify equity gaps in academics as well as funding areas and allowing colleges to address these issues. This is critical at the community college level which can have such a positive impact on diversifying and localizing the teacher workforce. You can learn more about Impact Stats and their work at impactstats.org.

Stacy Wilson and Dr. Alex Arreguin, both of whom are English faculty at Mesa Community College in Arizona, created the Literacy Partners Project out of a sense of curiosity for what their English 101 and 102 students were learning in other courses. Specifically, if their students were able to use the concepts they were teaching to complete coursework in history, science, math, and other courses. As they met with instructors from other disciplines they adapted a concept that Dr. Elizabeth Wardle from Miami University of Ohio had implemented.

By developing a series of writing across disciplines frameworks that included utilizing threshold concepts, knowledge transfer, and decoding the disciplines, they were able to not only develop student success initiatives, but also apply these frameworks to program and college departments. On the faculty development side, they used the decoding the disciplines approach to bring together colleagues from different disciplines and departments to work together to help solve the challenges each faced by offering new perspectives.

We welcome the perspectives of Dezi Lynn, Educator Initiative Manager for the National Indian Education Association - NIEA, Dr. Donna Brown, Vice President of Sponsored Programs for the American Indian Higher Education Consortium - AIHEC, and Dr. Danny Luecke, Secondary Math Education Faculty at Turtle Mountain College, on the nuances of Indigenous Teacher Preparation. Each of our guests share their journeys to becoming teachers and to their current positions.

Listen in as we learn how native cultures and languages are honored in teacher preparation programs. Numerous books and resources are mentioned throughout this episode and can be found on the NACCTEP Book List. Additionally, the NIEA offered a series of webinars over the late spring to early summer of 2025 that can be found on their website at https://www.niea.org/webinars

For the Borough of Manhattan Community College episode in NACCTEP Now's CUNY series we talk with President Dr. Anthony E. Munroe. As the largest undergraduate school in the CUNY system as well as one of the largest Hispanic Serving Institutions in the Northeast, BMCC is situated in lower Manhattan near Wall Street, the United Nations, and where the World Trade Center once stood. The location is "a prime position to develop educators with a global perspective."

Partnerships with local performing arts centers help future educators to learn how to incorporate art into the classrooms and lessons, the A in STEAM. On the STEM side, BMCC started a Women in STEM program to encourage and mentor women entering the field, as well as being a part of the New York HSI STEM Hub and the Pipeline Opportunity for Intercollegiate STEM Education with NYU. In BMCC's teacher education programs, integrated technology is emphasized so that future teachers can seamlessly incorporate new and future technologies into their classrooms. Some practicum and student teaching placements include co-teaching and designing lessons for both hybrid and fully online settings.

Additionally, Dr. Munroe shares that BMCC is "an environment where every student feels seen, valued, and supported, regardless of [their] background." Part of this includes programs specifically for first generation students as well as programs such as the New York State Opportunity Promise Program which provides free tuition for students over the age of 25 attempting their first college degree and the CUNY Reconnect Program which waives tuition and fees for students over 25 who are returning to complete a degree they had previously started and stepped away from.

This special CUNY series episode features Dr. Cocco De Filippis, President of Hostos Community College in the South Bronx sharing how Hostos' Associate of Arts, AA, and Associate of Applied Science, AAS, degrees help local students enter and advance in the teaching field. While AAS degrees allow students to directly enter the workforce or advance in their field, AA degrees lead to transferring to a bachelors program and 85% of the students from Hostos who transfer do so to another CUNY school.

One particular highlight of Hostos' education programs is a Bilingual AAS degree that is beneficial for their local community where over 50 languages are spoken. From their first courses, students in the education programs complete field experience hours. Some of these hours are completed by reading to children in the on-campus Child Care Center, others may include attending a local PTA meeting.

Dr. Cocco De Filippis is particularly proud of how Hostos' programs respect and honor the cultural differences of their students, especially with non-traditional students who may be parents or grandparents entering the teaching profession. Her passion for the profession and encouragement of those pursuing teaching is evident throughout this episode.

Dr. Christine Mangino, President of Queensborough Community College, and Dr. Anita Ferdenzi, leader of Queensborough's Education Academy, talk about the seamless pathway between Queensborough and Queens College for students in the education pathway. A grant from the Heckscher Foundation ensures that courses are transferred as courses rather than as a blanket transfer of credit hours. Curriculum and transfer meetings between the schools include the presidents of each school, showing the importance of developing seamless pathways for students pursuing transfer between the two schools. Queens College also has a new dual birth through 2nd grade and 1st through 6th grade degree which will allow even more courses to transfer.

Dr. Mangino also mentions the new child care center they hope to begin work on in the summer of 2026 that will include observation rooms that can be used by education students, psychology students, and nursing students. Ideally, the center will be available to both students and employees with small children.

The Drs. also discuss how the diverse student body at Queensborough reflects the diversity within the Queens community. Students from 120 countries who speak more than 80 different languages and dialects may one day have a positive effect on their own community.

In this episode, LaGuardia Community College President Kenneth Adams discusses the many successes at LaGuardia with rebounding enrollment in their teacher preparation programs. Chief among these successes is the linguistic and cultural diversity of the students in the programs that is reflective of the borough of Queens, New York. With roughly 125 different countries and 50 heritage languages in the community, LaGuardia's enrollment spans them all and includes an education associate bilingual child degree program.

President Adams also discusses the many critical resources that LaGuardia Community College has to assist students in overcoming any health care, food needs, and financial barriers to being both enrolled in and successful in their degree programs. Among these resources is the TEACH NY program that is a statewide collection of resources as well as a newly introduced program from New York Governor Hochul that allows for free tuition to any student aged 25-55 pursuing a degree in a high needs program, including the education field called the New York State Opportunity Program.

President Adams also shared how AI could help broaden the reach and engagement with students and families as they navigate the admissions process in higher education. He mentioned in their advisement area, LaGuardia is exploring the use of AI devices that can translate English into ten other languages to make students and their families more comfortable without needing to wait for a human translator to assist.