Teachers College’s Campaign, Where the Future Comes First, connects our passionate TC alumni citizens around the world with TC and one another. That effort has gained momentum with each passing year, and in 2015-16 we reached new heights.
Scroll down on this page to read more about what TC alumni have been up to. Just as important: get involved by contacting us at tcalumni@tc.edu, volunteering for one of our events, or participating in our 2017 signature events: Academic Festival and Global TC Day. There’s a great conversation going on and we want to include your voice!
Our arts-themed 2016 Academic Festival showcased the breadth and depth of the TC community. Titled “Full STEAM Ahead,” that very special day included recognition of a group of Distinguished Alumni Award recipients who have added to TC’s “legacy of firsts.” Among the honorees were Nancy Schlossberg (Ed.D. '61), originator of Schlossberg's Transition Theory, who led the day’s most well-attended session, and David Johns (M.A. '06), the first executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, who received TC’s Early Career Award. Honoree Olivia Hooker (M.A. ’47), a centenarian who was the first African-American woman to serve in the coast guard, shared her acceptance speech virtually in a video that became one of the highest shared social media posts throughout the TC Community.
Alumni events took place both far and wide; programming for the year also featured a series of events in Seattle and the Bay Area, including a gathering at Google, where Warner Burke, E.L. Thorndike Professor of Psychology & Education, attracted a record-setting audience (nearly three quarters of whom were first-time attendees at a TC event). We also launched several new series, including monthly career-development webinars led exclusively by alumni and an extremely well-received Parenting (and Grandparenting) Series that presented evidence-based advice on child rearing. Another event that attracted many first-time alumni attendees: the AEGIS for Life sponsored Mezirow Lecture, inspired by the late Jack Mezirow, TC’s great adult education theorist. With the help of focus groups, we are developing other Special Interest Groups. And we’d love to hear from you about the kind of programming you’d like to see!
Alumni hosted more than 85 content-rich events this past year in 16 states and nine countries. There are now 15 regional alumni groups operating worldwide, with alumni volunteers in Washington D.C., Boca Raton, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Shanghai and London leading robust regional development. TC alumni and faculty are speaking in greater numbers than ever before at TC2U events, professional conferences, book talks and other gatherings.
Keep in touch with alumni working and living near you. Connect with these regional alumni groups for opportunities to meet and network with fellow graduates and stay connected to TC!
“Lift Off,” a speech delivered by Donovan Livingston (M.A. ’11) as student speaker for Harvard Graduate School of Education’s 2016 Convocation, has been viewed more than 11 million times and widely shared across multiple news outlets. Livingston was featured on CNN and The Today Show.
Eric Oberstein (M.A. ’09) served as Producer of The Afro Latin Jazz Suite by Arturo O’Farrill, which earned the GRAMMY Award for Best Instrumental Composition at the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards in Los Angeles in February. The suite appears on O’Farrill’s album, “Cuba: The Conversation Continues.” Oberstein and his team also won a GRAMMY in 2015 for The Offense of the Drum, which was honored as Best Latin Jazz Album.
It was a great year for late, great TC artists. Major exhibitions this year by our famous alumni included:
The New Yorker magazine's "City of Women" map, which imagines NYC's subway stops named for famous women, includes several TC alumnae. Among those represented:
Click here to view the Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients from TC’s eighth annual Academic Festival.
Unflattening (Harvard University Press), the TC dissertation of Nick Sousanis (Ed.D. ’14), won the 2016 American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) in Humanities and the Lynd Ward Prize for Graphic Novel of the Year. An extended meditation on perception and cognition, Unflattening is rendered entirely in comic book form.
PS DANCE!, a documentary film about dance education in public schools, was nominated for a NY Emmy award. The film’s Executive Producer, Jody Gottfried Arnhold (M.A. ’73), is a dance educator/advocate, founder of 92Y Dance Education Laboratory and 2013 TC Distinguished Alumni Award recipient. She has generously funded a new dance education doctoral program at the College (Read more about Jody's Gift) . The film also features alumna Ani Udovicki (M.A. '00), dance teacher, at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts.
Recent TC grads are making things happen. During the past year:
Our alumni have distinguished themselves in the fields of Education, Health and Psychology. Click here to view the full list of Star Educators.
The academic experience at TC doesn't have to end with a master's or doctoral degree. Click here to learn more about our Continuing Professional Studies programs.
Academic Festival at Teachers College, Columbia University is our signature homecoming event which brings together faculty, alumni, students, friends and newly admitted students and their families for a day of learning, reconnecting and celebrating. To read about last year's Academic Festival please visit tc.edu/festival.
As Teachers College celebrated its 125th Anniversary in 2013, the Office of Alumni Relations helped celebrate this milestone worldwide! This proved to be an exceptional opportunity for us to reconnect with alumni around the globe and for you to connect with alumni living and working near you. It was such a popular event that we brought it back in 2015 and have made it a signature part of our event calendar (celebrating every other year). We will again celebrate #GlobalTCDay in the summer of 2017 as we "Think Globally, Celebrate Locally."
