Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education

"[1] An effort by the alumni association changed the name of the institution to Tempe State Teachers College in 1925, and offered its first graduate degree, the Masters in Education, in 1937.

The college remained focused on teacher preparation until the mid-1980s, when Dean Gladys Styles Johnston, as part of the institution's efforts to achieve Carnegie's Research I status, recruited and appointed some of the nation's top education scholars, including Thomas Barone, David Berliner, Gene V Glass, and Mary Lee Smith.

By the end of his tenure as dean, Berliner had been responsible for hiring approximately 25% of the college faculty, primarily exceptional junior scholars.

Berliner hired a number of progressive faculty who believed in public advocacy, further aggravating lawmakers and future superintendents, such as conservative Tom Horne.

In addition, Rund continued serving in his prior position as ASU Senior Vice President for Educational Outreach and Student Services.

The University of Arizona, under the same budget reduction mandate from the Board of Regents, imposed a hiring freeze and tiered furloughs to meet its obligation.

During the next 30 days, we will be reviewing implementation measures to try to minimize disruption to our faculty and staff and keep them focused on providing exceptional service and education for Arizona students and their families."

Everywhere I went during the meetings I was asked about two things: Arizona's new immigration law and the disestablishment of the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School at ASU, or "FIGSE."

While it is now too late to stop the latter, I believe it is important to go on record as opposed to not only the decision made by the administration, but to raise concerns about the process, and the lack of faculty consultation or representation.

You have had the opportunity to read both the faculty and student statements concerning maintaining the integrity and high rankings of our graduate programs in education.

Our sister institutions responded to the ABOR mandate in far less dramatic ways with future tiered furloughs (at UA) and closed searches and non-replacement measures at NAU.

On a related vote at the same meeting, the senate opposed the renaming of CTEL as the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College by 75 to 18, with 5 abstentions.

We are aware that many universities like ASU face stringent economic times and need to arrive at strategies that permit transformation and change consonant with mission and purpose.

ASU has been the home to a community of highly productive faculty members known for the significance of their education research, the quality of their teaching and mentoring, and their professional service.

Large numbers of your faculty are leading contributors to this field—publishing in the most competitive and highly ranked journals, holding prominent editorships, and serving as scientific advisors on committees nationally and internationally.

We write, now, out of a concern that, while scholarship and training in education are important scientific and policy priorities to our nation, they may come to have a diminished role and presence at ASU through the proposed reorganization.

Although we realize that talented faculty and their students are likely to be retained in any reorganization, the university's commitment to this arena of interdisciplinary scholarship will be seriously eroded were identifiable graduate programs to be disestablished and essentially eliminated at ASU.

We believe that, with more time to examine the question and the quality of your graduate programs, ASU will be better situated to reach a decision that serves your institutional goals and that of the nation.

Sincerely, Carol D. Lee, PhD, AERA 2010 President Felice J. Levine, PhD, Executive Director Arizona State University Executive Vice President and Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi sent a letter dated April 20, 2010, in response to the letter from Carol D. Lee and Felice J. Levine.

Dear Dr. Lee and Dr. Levine: Thank you for your letter noting concerns about Arizona State University's recent reorganization in our colleges of Education.

Over the past three years of massive budget cuts in Arizona, we have been steadfast in our commitment to protect faculty lines and academic programs.

I am sharing with you a recent article published in Change[8] that outlines what we have continued to try to accomplish through such reorganization at Arizona State University without compromising quality.

We believe that this quality will continue to improve as our faculties from across the university coalesce around significant educational issues to be addressed in the decades ahead.