Subject: School of Education?

Posted by Sharon Villines on 11/23/2009
In Reply To:School of Education? Posted by Dexter Chapin on 11/23/2009

Message:

On Nov 23, 2009, at 10:26 AM, Dexter Chapin wrote:

> I went to a really wonderful school. It was the best experience I have
> ever had as a student. But it was not the school. It was the teacher.
> I got hooked up with a magical teacher. It is not about rankings; it
> is about connection.

Empire State College, a campus of the State University of New York, was consistently the highest-rated college in SUNY on student satisfaction, by a significant margin. I'm not familiar with the rankings from the last 10 years.

The reason was the connection to mentors, as we were called, not professors. Each student had a mentor who guided them while they studied independently, with tutors, or in small groups. They received credit for non-class room experience and designed their own degree programs.

Almost all of the students were over 30 and had previous college experience at traditional schools, so they were more realistic than many of the 18-21 year olds who were ranking other campuses. Still that was an impressive ranking.

Students were encouraged to make a connection with a mentor regardless of matches in subject matter. I had a number of students in business, for example, when we were forced to take as a business mentor someone being "moved upstairs" from central administration. He was much more interested in talking about hot-air balloons than economics, driving pragmatic business students crazy.

Sharon