Annual Report 2023

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A Letter from President Bailey

The year 2023 held a number of exciting transitions at Teachers College. We welcomed our new Provost, KerryAnn O’Meara. We invested significantly in the support we provide students, culminating in the launch of our new Division of Enrollment and Student Success. We added a record 22 new faculty members, lecturers and professors of practice to our roster for the year — an especially diverse group. We also affirmed a refreshed mission statement and branding for the College — on full display in this report, which highlights Teachers College as a place where true change begins.

I am proud of these changes, which are just a few examples of the many updates shared in these pages. Collectively, they exemplify TC’s historic role in meeting the moment, evolving to serve current needs, engaging with our community, identifying challenges and providing solutions.

At Teachers College, we not only embrace change; we consider it our role to prepare our students to be change agents in the world, where they are prepared to question the status quo, find solutions and implement them.

This is a tall order. None of these components of change are easy. And yet our students, faculty and staff are both guided and strengthened by our belief in the power of education, health and psychology to improve society.  This commitment has been a part of our culture since day one. 

More than 1,600 new students joined us in programs across the College this year and 100 percent of them will leave here with the skills, motivation and leadership qualities to take on challenges we are facing around the world that are increasingly complex and ever-expanding. Our students work with our exceptional faculty to address the mental health issues that have exponentially increased since the pandemic. They identify ways to educate and support recent immigrants and refugees. They work to address all forms of literacy, including media literacy, which is so critical during this time of advanced artificial intelligence and so vital to a functioning democracy. 

Our community also takes advantage of those changes that have the potential to impact our world in a positive way: using artificial intelligence in the classroom, drawing on technology as intervention tools for depression, anxiety and other mental health issues and connecting with partners in the field to provide research and data-driven solutions.

Together, across departments, across states and across countries, our work has an impact, and will have an impact, well beyond our students’ and faculty’s years at the College.

I am honored to lead an institution that rises to the challenge of the current day and future days, drawing on our esteemed faculty, bringing together our outstanding alumni and students, a multidisciplinary collective of change-makers who are taking direct action to build a better world.

We are indebted to our community of supporters who ensure our strength and inspire us to achieve more.

Warmly,

Thomas Bailey
President

~7K

News Media Mentions, +53% in '23 over '22

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Preparing Educators for Tomorrow

We’ve fearlessly pursued better education that pushes boundaries since day one, more than 136 years ago. Today, we lead teacher preparation designed to confront today’s real problems and expand possibilities for all students.

In this pursuit, we focused on:

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

We’re continuing work with local partners to make education more inclusive and impactful for all students. New milestones this year include:

• Open curricula Lenape history and current issues that abandons “settler narratives” and promotes inclusion via a collaboration between lecturer Rachel Talbert, TC students and grads, and partners at the Lenape Center.
• Scholarship on the impact of school reform on Black communities and the future of more inclusive schooling from Bettina Love, the William F. Russell Professor, in her book Punished for Dreaming, which climbed to the sixth spot on the New York Times Bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction.
  
• Evidence that clarifies national attitudes about teaching the history of racial justice in schools, with TC’s Black Education Research Center (BERC) — led by Sonya Douglass, Professor of Education Leadership — finding that a majority of Americans support teacher agency and inclusive curriculum.
• Preparation for educators to teach the nation’s first K-12 Black Studies curriculum — also designed by BERC and led by Douglass, in collaboration with the Education Equity Action Plan, a coalition of educators, nonprofits, and government leaders — offered in select NYC Schools districts as part of a pilot program.

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Real-World Preparation

We’re applying evidence-based research and scholarship in everyday life to impart true change. You see it happen through:

• Early-career teachers/alums who, as clinical faculty in the Elementary Inclusive Education program, offer emerging student-teachers meaningful insights and lessons from the field that help to prepare the future educators for the classroom and support the clinical faculty in becoming better teachers.
• Our first dance education doctoral graduates, who will apply their field experience and pedagogy to serve the public as expert teacher-educators, researchers and leaders dedicated to making dance education accessible to every child. 
• Work to strengthen school reform in the Global South through research, analysis and policy advice, led by Gita Steiner-Khamsi, William Heard Kilpatrick Professor of Comparative Education and Honorary UNESCO Chair of Comparative Education Policy hosted by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

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Comprehensive Literacy Instruction

• With the creation of an Advancing Literacy unit, based in the Office of Continuing Professional Studies, TC is working to foster greater collaboration among different evidence-based approaches to literacy at the College. We introduced new professional development opportunities, such as an advanced certificate in literacy and noncredit workshops, that offer proven, research-informed strategies, instruction and interventions to meet the needs of a wide range of learners.
• Two symposia facilitated cross-disciplinary dialogue among educators, researchers, educators and practitioners focused on reading approaches and interventions to understand and improve literacy outcomes. In June, a wide-reaching symposium, led by Vice Dean for Teacher Education Celia Oyler, discussed how to best prepare teachers in comprehensive literacy instruction and the importance of centering student needs. In September, Karen Froud, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Education, and colleagues led a symposium centering current research on the neural bases of reading and its implications for teaching and learning.
• Applicable advancements in the instruction and understanding of multilingual literacies and resources for bilingual students continued through work from María Paula Ghiso, Professor of Literacy Education; Carol Scheffner Hammer, Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders; faculty in the Bilingual/Bicultural and TESOL Programs; and other experts.

Democracy in Schools - Our work to advance equity in schools includes:

• Critical insight from TC faculty on the history, legal terrain and implications of excluding material related to race, sexuality and gender identity in classrooms as a fraught political battle unfolds across the United States.
• The NYC Civil Rights History Project, a collection of free educational resources showcasing efforts for racial and disability justice, co-produced by Ansley Erickson — Associate Professor of History and Education Policy and Co-Director of the Center on History and Education — and numerous community partners.
• Organizing the first annual New York State Civic Learning Week, which spotlights ongoing work to inform and engage K-12 students in civic participation. The major events were hosted by the Center for Educational Equity, led by Michael Rebell, Professor of Law and Educational Practice, and the Center’s Democracy NY Coalition, and will return this year from March 11-15. 

Teaching Sustainability

Forty elementary school teachers gained climate change education tools in a week-long summer institute funded by the National Science Foundation. The institute took an interdisciplinary approach to helping educators integrate climate change lessons into classes across subjects, and balance helping students understand challenges and opportunities for innovation. A partnership between the TC’s Center for Sustainable Futures, the Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence & Physics Center at Columbia University, and the Office of Energy and Sustainability in New York City Public Schools, the institute will continue in 2024 with professional development for middle school teachers. 

Digital Innovation

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Driven by service and scholarship, TC’s Digital Futures Institute (DFI) and faculty experts are shaping the future of innovation and expanding possibilities across education, health and psychology.

Supporting Educators & Engaging the Public

• We’re preparing educators to leverage artificial intelligence tools to improve learning outcomes, and prepare students for a significant transformation of the global economy through free workshops for educators, lesson plans and scholarship from TC’s experts, led by Lalitha Vasudevan, Vice Dean for Digital Innovation, and Professor of Technology and Education.
• Strengthening the ties between play, learning, and creativity in the digital age, TC scholars like Haeny Yoon, Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education, are working with industry leaders and colleagues to develop a repository of interdisciplinary research while facilitating public dialogues about the importance of play for young people. The Play x Wellbeing initiative brings together research, practice, and public projects focused on cultivating play. 
• To explore tech-driven, hands-on learning, hundreds of researchers, educators and students convened at TC last fall for the Constructionism / FabLearn 2023 conference co-chaired by Paulo Blikstein and Nathan Holbert, Associate Professors of Communication, Media and Learning Technology Design, and one of the largest events of its kind in the world. 

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Improving Tech & Equity

• New research from Alex Bowers, Professor of Education Leadership, and a team of TC doctoral students found that more than 700 datasets from New York City align to recent equity indicators, yet highlight that there is much work needed to build more equitable data infrastructure.
• Artificial intelligence is fallible to the same racial biases as humans, and developers and users must be aware of the risks in order to properly address threats to equity, ongoing scholarship from Ezekiel Dixon-Román, Professor of Critical Race, Media and Educational Studies, explores.

Driving Social Justice with Digital Media

• Pushing boundaries in multimodal scholarship, TC faculty, students, and postdoctoral scholars are driving transformative research practice through creative, tech-savvy formats to improve research accessibility. You’ll see it in MODES from DFI and work from the Media and Social Change Lab.
• Students also pursued creative solutions through the College’s annual Innovation Awards, during which the winning team developed an AI-powered music journaling app to help young people express themselves.

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Mental Health and Wellness

Exceptional possibilities require the full potential of the mind, body and brain — which is why our faculty, students and alumni charge towards equity-building solutions across health and psychology.

Cultivating Emotional Well-Being

• Our neighbors continued to receive accessible care at TC’s Dean Hope Center, where students also learn through enriching, hands-on clinical practice and community-focused research.
• New research from John Allegrante, the Charles Irwin Lambert Professor of Health Behavior and Education, quantified the decline of adolescent mental health following the pandemic and provided additional evidence on the roles of social media, sleep and parental support.
• The cultural adaptation of an evidence-based parenting intervention for suicide prevention among Asian American youth is the focus of ongoing work led by Cindy Huang, Assistant Professor of Counseling, with support from Christine Cha, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology, in partnership with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
• Working to promote parents' sense of efficacy and wellbeing as they support their children's emotion regulation development, Laudan Jahromi, Professor of Psychology and Education and her colleagues examined the effect of virtual, evidence-based psychoeducational programming for parents and other caregivers of autistic children.

At the Dean Hope Center:

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Innovating Prevention and Intervention Approaches

• Preliminary findings from research on Emotion Regulation Therapy by Douglas Mennin, Professor of Clinical Psychology, revealed best practices for telehealth, and implemented findings in an app that leverages insights on patient care between sessions.  
• Thousands of children across the world still struggle with clear speech after receiving cleft palate surgery. That’s why Cate Crowley, Professor of Practice, and students provided in-person training for speech therapists to build lasting, comprehensive care with local and international partners in Ghana, Colombia and other nations.
• With collaborators from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, Associate Professor of Psychology and Education Helen Verdeli used clinical science to develop a blueprint of affordable community-based mental health services provided by refugees to refugees from Venezuela in Peru. 
• Partnering with schools to improve student outcomes Mel Collier-Meek, Associate Professor of Psychology and Education, worked to solve practical implementation challenges, collect rigorous evaluation data and implement sustained, effective practices to support mental health and student success in schools.

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Challenging Bias

• New TC scholarship co-authored by Elissa L. Perry, Professor of Psychology and Education, provides actionable insight for leaders in today’s exceedingly demanding work environment. 
• Foundational work from Derald Wing Sue, Professor of Psychology and Education, on microaggressions offered insight on the phenomenon of bias contagion as political variables continue to exacerbate social tensions. 
• Examining racism’s psychological impact, work from Laura Smith, Professor of Psychology and Education, continued exploring links between race-related discourse and the perpetuation of racism.
• New insight on the role of attachment styles in LGBTQ+ romantic relationships from Melanie Brewster, Professor of Counseling Psychology, sheds light on unique experiences and mental health challenges.

Addressing Critical Sociocultural Issues

• As part of efforts to reduce gun violence, students gained hands-on experience under the stewardship of Sonali Rajan, Associate Professor of Health Education, the inaugural president of the national Research Society for the Prevention of Firearm-Related Harms.

• Connections between language and peace in countries across the world offer key clues about how to build and sustain peacefulness, a new study from Peter Coleman, Professor of Psychology and Education, reveals.
• New insights on how high-achieving students respond to failure from Xiaodong Lin-Siegler, Professor of Cognitive Studies, and Ben Lovett, Associate Professor of Psychology and Education, yielded strategies that can help support students struggling academically.

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In 2023, we continued our efforts to strengthen student pathways for optimal student success — from their acceptance at TC, during their time on 120th Street and beyond through the launch of our new Division of Enrollment and Student Success that brings together  the departments of enrollment management and student affairs.

New Student Enrollment

TC welcomed almost 2,000 new students to the College’s master’s, doctoral, and advanced certificate programs in 2023. Students came with a wide variety of talents, academic interests, professional experiences, and origins. Our signature Admitted Students Day for newly admitted and enrolling students brought hundreds of students to campus from across the globe. The celebration included a robust introduction to academic programs, our faculty, student organizations, support resources, and housing options to acquaint them with life and opportunities at TC.

Orientation

Welcomed more than 1,000 students to TC Way during numerous days of programming to set them up for success at the College, including visiting resources like TC NEXT and the Graduate Writing Center, learning about the neighborhood, meeting faculty and classmates, and more. 

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First Generation Celebration Week

Honored students who are the first in their families to attend college or graduate school with an itinerary of events designed to build solidarity, celebrate their unique stories and find support.

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Convocation 2023

Marked the culmination of hard work for hundreds of exceptional graduates across education, health and psychology ready to bring true change to the world.

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Expanded Student Support

TC’s continued investment in strengthening student pathways for success included: 

• Streamlined requirements for Ed.D. credits. 
• Implementation of the Teachers’ Future Award providing strengthened financial support for teacher certification students, which launched as a pilot to address the nationwide teacher shortage and contributed to a significant spike in new domestic enrollment in our teacher certification programs as a result.
• Increased hourly wages for students employed in Federal Work Study programs or Administrative Fellowships.
• Identified additional opportunities for resources and support along the student journey along entry, engagement and exit points.

We accomplish more together. And our robust community of leaders and learners — including our alumni, supporters and friends — plays a critical role when we team up with our neighbors to drive equity-centered work.

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A Letter From Tamara Britt

Since its founding, Teachers College has confronted societal challenges with the courage and bold inquiry that have driven lasting change for more than 136 years. This wouldn’t be possible without you, our community of trustees, alumni, donors, faculty and staff, who continue to uplift new generations of learners and leaders through generous financial support, and the sharing of your time and talents. 

Our community stepped up in 2023, when fundraising for the College increased by nearly 28% from the previous year in the most impactful jump since before the pandemic. Together, we continued the College’s efforts to strengthen scholarship support for students. We worked to confront the national teacher shortage by boosting financial support for teacher certification students. The TC Board of Trustees took the College's commitment to making the education, psychology and health professions more financially accessible to a new level by creating the Trustees Scholars of Tomorrow Initiative, which enables students to attend TC with less financial hardship. 

In 2023, we awarded $37 million to students through scholarships and assistantships. The return on that investment is still pending, but as our history reflects, those students will go on to make a difference in the lives of countless others through careers built upon the very values that tie the TC community together: a relentless belief that the world can (and should) be better, more inclusive and more equitable, and that through brave, boundary-pushing work across education, psychology and health, we can all realize that vision. 

These aspirations not only fueled a meaningful difference in the lives of students, but also brought us together, with thousands of alumni across the globe joining the College for in-person and virtual events. We convened alumni, faculty and friends for the first time together since the pandemic at TC (Re)Unites. We traveled throughout Asia to visit our alumni and friends, celebrating our shared values and the lasting TC bonds internationally for the first time in five years.

Meanwhile, hundreds of alumni and friends learned about civic issues such as voter registration, student loan debt and gun violence in our TC Take Action workshops. Hundreds more mobilized to help clean up parks, donate books and get involved in TC and beyond in honor of TC Impact Day. And in one of the most meaningful events each year, 100 members of TC’s Grace Dodge Society had the opportunity to meet the students their scholarships and gifts helped to fund. The power of our community — right now because of you and your participation — is palpable. 

In the words of TC alum Shirley Chisholm, “Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.” Guided by the vision that was set in place more than a century ago, the TC community is barreling forward towards achievements and breakthroughs that will make profound impacts for generations to come. Thank you for being part of this journey.

With gratitude,

Tamara J. Britt
Interim Vice President for Institutional Advancement
Vice President and General Counsel

58 events in 14 U.S. cities and 6 countries.

~2,000 alumni participated

Building Our TC Community

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TC’s First (Re)Unites

Alumni, students, faculty and friends joyfully gathered on campus for the first time in three years to consider the many ways that we think about wellness, including mindfulness, sustainability, food education, caring for each other, movement and a healthy democracy. The festivities also included virtual sessions throughout the week prior and the presentation of the 2023 Alumni Awards.

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Impact Day 2023

Through your generosity, service and civic action, TC’s second Annual Impact Day united community members once again to celebrate our collective impact and create true change for the greater good. 

> $382,000 and 535 gifts made to support students, programs and research 

160+ volunteers for read-alouds, park and community clean-ups and civic action

2,300 books donated to Harlem schools

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TC Around the World

Alumni in six countries across the globe gathered in community with TC leadership to connect with one another, network and discuss the impact of the College on their lives. Visited places include Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Jakarta and Seoul, as well as stateside visits to Palm Beach, Sarasota and Miami. 

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Community Impact

Accessible Nutrition Education

A new TC-led project at a Harlem public school leverages culturally-inclusive, embodied practices to encourage healthy, accessible eating for middle school students, while demonstrating the connections between gardening, nutrition and environmental justice. The project operates under the guidance of its founder, Pam Koch, the Mary Swartz Rose Associate Professor of Nutrition and Education and Faculty Director of the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy and Laura Azzarito, Professor of Physical Culture and Education and Co-Director Visual Research Center for Education, Art, & Social Change. More broadly, the Tisch Food Center — led by Executive Director Jennifer Cadenhead, Assistant Research Professor — continues its community-driven nutrition education work and policy research to improve accessibility to healthy food. 

Community Health Support

Free neurological screenings and resources aim to alleviate gaps in healthcare access and create pathways for early intervention for local patients with Parkinson’s disease and other neurological conditions, thanks to work from Lori Quinn, Professor of Movement Science and Kinesiology, her students, colleagues and local partners.

Building Academic Community

With colleagues from across New York City, Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Professor of English Education, is connecting scholars committed to Asian and Black solidarity and justice to advance inclusivity, tolerance and safety for everyone.

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Advancing Culturally-Inclusive STEAM

Innovative learning opportunities brought students from local K-12 schools and TC students together at the College’s annual STEAMnasium, which included eight play-based learning activities that incorporated diversity, equity and inclusion principles.

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Tackling Education Policy Together

Students, alumni, faculty and policy leaders gathered to discuss progress and challenges at the annual Federal Policy Institute reception in Washington, D.C. Connected to the course led by Sharon Lynn Kagan (Ed.D. ’79), the gathering included KerryAnn O'Meara, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean of the College; TC Trustee Jay Urwitz, Senior Fellow at the American Council on Education; and Jessica Cardichon (Ed.D. ’03), special assistant to President Joe Biden on the White House Domestic Policy Council.  

Top 3 Countries Outside of the U.S.

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Advancing Academic Excellence: Meet the Provost

In July 2023, TC welcomed KerryAnn O’Meara — an internationally recognized scholar and expert on faculty affairs and diversity, equity, and inclusion — as its Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean of the College. As part of her work, O’Meara has led a series of community-wide dialogues to define and codify our commitments to our students, to our fields, to our schools and communities, and to each other in the context of our new mission. “TC has long been recognized as a leader, having opened new areas of inquiry, created and shaped new opportunities in education, health and psychology, and innovated in ways that reshaped practice,” O’Meara wrote at the beginning of the academic year. 

“I am excited about this opportunity to dialogue together as a community about what is most important to us, what we want to be accountable for, actions we can take to live our commitments, and how we will measure and affirm success.”

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Welcoming New TC Trustee Elisa G. Wilson

Elisa G. Wilson (Ed.M., M.A. ’95) was elected to TC’s Board of Trustees in June 2023. Wilson is a director of GAMCO Investors, Inc., a publicly owned, diversified global financial services company, and has served on its board since February 2009. She is also a director of the investment firm Associated Capital Group, and serves as president of the Gabelli Foundation, Inc., a private foundation  focused on education. In addition, Elisa serves as a Trustee on the Board of Boston College and on the Council for Women at Boston College. She has been an active member of the Board of Directors of the Breast Cancer Alliance since 2014.