An external committee will begin its review of the education department today, undertaking an examination process that will determine the department's future status at the College.
The report the committee will file this spring marks the third time in seven years that the education department has undergone such scrutiny.
The previous two times, internal review committees recommended the department's elimination, citing internal disputes, the pre-professional nature of the Teacher Certification Program and a lack of scholarship on the part of the faculty as bases for its removal.
Now, however, with the commissioning of an external committee, the authority of its eventual recommendations will be less questionable.
"I think external committees carry a great deal more weight," Chair of the education department Andrew Garrod said. "Not only are the committee members distinguished scholars, but they are people who have devoted their professional lives to thinking about these things."
Indeed, respected education faculty from the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University and Brown University, as well as two Dartmouth professors, will review the department.
Garrod said the internal review committees in 1993 and 1996 were not specialized in the field, rendering their conclusions less persuasive.
"There were people who had no background in the workings of education departments even if they had interest in issues of education," he explained.
The previous two times that the education department's dissolution was recommended, student protest kept the department alive.
The current review process was commissioned in 1996 when over 300 students voiced their support of the program at a public meeting.
Most recently, the Student Assembly unanimously endorsed a resolution supporting the continuation and expansion of the education department at a meeting on Tuesday night.
The external review committee, among other things, will conduct various interviews with faculty in the Education department, other professors who are concerned with the department's future role at the College, and students who feel strongly that it not be removed.
Noah Levy '99 is one such student who will speak with the reviewers. He said of the message he will convey: "I think it's very important that the ed. department not only remain at the school, but also be elevated to a higher status."
"The classes I've taken in it have made me more socially aware and made me all together a better person, and that's what I'm going to communicate," Levy said.
Although the department graduates few career teachers, it remains a popular course option. Education classes usually have long waiting lists and some, such as Education 20, have enrollments exceeding 200.
"I think we are doing extraordinarily well," Garrod said. "The conditions in the department that were criticized in the previous reports are no longer relevant."
The curriculum now holds joint classes with other departments, manages the Dartmouth Schools Partnership with Upper Valley public schools and co-sponsors a teaching internship program in the Marshall Islands with the Tucker Foundation.
Despite student support, obstacles to the department still loom. Paramount among these are College President James Wright's push to make Dartmouth more of a research institution with an emphasis on a liberal arts education.
Because the department has only one tenured professor, it has fallen short of meeting the expectations of a research agenda.
The review committee will be made up of five reviewers, two of whom -- Physics professor Mary Hudson and Native American Studies and History professor Collin Callaway -- are members of the Dartmouth faculty.
The other three committee members are Susan Fuhrman, dean of Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania; Nel Noddings, former acting dean of the Stanford University Graduate School of Education; and Cynthia Garca-Coll, a developmental psychologist and professor of Education at Brown University.
-- updated 02/03/00 2:40 p.m.
