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Faculty of Education

Since its inception in 1942, when it became the first such faculty in Canada, the Faculty of Education has grown to become one of the largest of its kind in the country. The Faculty’s four departments provide courses to over 3,400 undergraduate and 750 graduate students.

The Departments of Educational Policy Studies, Educational Psychology, Elementary Education, and Secondary Education are joined by the School of Library and Information Studies in providing programming for teacher education and related fields. Each department is affiliated with a number of centres and institutes dedicated to researching aspects of education, from pedagogy to psychology.

The Faculty employs more than 108 full-time professors, 54 support staff, and 130 full- and part-time sessional instructors. Altogether, the Faculty offers nine undergraduate degree programs and a variety of graduate degrees.

According to Dean Fern Snart, education at the University of Alberta “must be transformative in nature promoting critical thinking, creativity, curiosity, and caring.”¹

Certainly, those who take courses offered by the Faculty of Education and those who have graduated from the Faculty and moved out into the community share their zeal for education and have a huge impact on families. Aware that children are tomorrow’s educators, the Faculty of Education takes its role in preparing today’s educators seriously. Part of that intention to keep an eye on tomorrow is played out by the Faculty’s recent addition of the Office of International Initiatives.The Office recognizes the global context in which teachers live, learn, and teach.

The faculty promotes “the view that to be a professional educator is to continue to question, to reflect, to seek knowledge, and to be open to change.”² This philosophy informs the work of the more than 60 percent of Alberta’s elementary and secondary school teachers who are University of Alberta graduates. Of the Faculty’s graduates, 33 went on to become presidents of universities or colleges. Twenty-five percent of Canadian Deans of Education graduated from the University of Alberta.

These impressive statistics demonstrate the excellent education offered to undergraduates and graduates enrolled in courses offered by the Faculty of Education. Faculty research areas encompass a diverse range of topics. Research initiatives and publications, published or edited by faculty members, cover topics such as educational research, distance education, and school libraries.

At the Department of Educational Policy Studies, courses explore policies and practices related to leadership, culture, society, and lifelong learning. The Department recently began publishing a refereed, online scholarly journal called The Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education. Seen as a place where graduate students can showcase their research and a means to bring together thinkers from around the world on topics such as indigenous people’s education and related international education issues, the Journal has a generalist focus.

Program areas for the Department of Educational Psychology are Psychological Studies in Education (Research & School Psychology Streams), Counselling Psychology; Measurement, Evaluation, and Cognition; Special Education, Teaching English as a Second Language, and School Counselling. This department is one of the largest educational psychology departments in Canada and attracts students from near and far.

The Department of Elementary Education is also one of the largest of its kind in Canada. Undergraduate and graduate students in this department may work towards a BEd, Diploma in Elementary Education, MEd, DPhi, or EdD. Subject areas include Art, Language and Literacy, Mathematics, Music, Physical Education, Science, Social Studies, Curriculum and Instructional Studies, Early Childhood Education, Second Language and English as a Secong Language, Teacher Education, and Teacher-Librarianship.

The Department of Secondary Education offers undergraduate and graduate courses that will prepare students to teach subjects offered in Alberta’s secondary schools. In addition, the Department is involved, as are the other departments, with centres and institutions, which, among other things, offer programs for teachers from overseas (Hokkaido and Kangwon being two examples).

The School of Library and Information Studies provides a MLIS program accredited by both the Canadian and American Library Associations. Graduates from this program are well grounded in the School’s philosophy of following a multi-disciplinary approach to information access and equity issues. Research conducted through the School of Library and Information Studies is intended to advance the knowledge base of the field in areas such as globalization and diversity, and children/youth services.

The Faculty of Education is supported through the Division of Technology in Education, which supplies and manages instructional technology services, including computer and audiovisual resources.

For more information on the Faculty of Education, please visit its website.

Deans of the Faculty of Education
2005–	Fern Snart
2004–2005	Fern Snart (Acting)
1996–2004	Larry Beauchamp
1991–1996	Harvey Zingle
1983–1991	Robert S. Patterson
1976–1983	Walter Holmes Worth
1975–1976	Fred Enns (Acting)
1972–1975	Myer Horowitz
1955–1972	Herbert Thomas Coutts
1950–1955	Herbert Edgar Smith
1942–1950	Milton Ezra LaZerte