UPIKE’s Patton College of Education recognized for excellence

The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) recently announced that the University of Pikeville’s Patton College of Education (PCOE) is one of 32 providers from 16 states to receive recognition for their leadership and commitment to excellence. PCOE provided evidence and data trends to achieve accreditation with no stipulations or areas for improvement, and in doing so, received the 2022 Frank Murray Leadership Recognition for Continuous Improvement.

“We are proud of UPIKE’s Patton College of Education, under Dr. Coletta Parsley’s direction, for their leadership in continuous improvement,” said UPIKE College of Arts and Sciences Dean Jennifer Dugan, Ph.D. “To have recently earned national accreditation from CAEP and to now receive the Frank Murray Award testifies to our PCOE team’s dedication, professional standards, and vision to serve Eastern Kentucky in educator preparation.”

The Frank Murray Leadership Recognition for Continuous Improvement is named after the founding President of the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC). CAEP was created by the consolidation of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and TEAC. Murray was the founding President of TEAC, served as Chairman of the Board for TEAC and was also an initial member of the CAEP Board of Directors. He was a key advocate for a single set of educator preparation standards to unify the profession and was instrumental in the merger that created CAEP.

CAEP accreditation serves the dual purposes of accountability and continuous improvement. Four hundred seventy-one educator preparation providers in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have been accredited under the CAEP Standards. The CAEP accreditation process evaluates the performance of providers and focuses particularly on whether candidates will be prepared, by completion, for the challenging responsibilities that educators face in America’s classrooms. Approximately 600 educator preparation providers participate in the CAEP Accreditation system.

“Seeking CAEP accreditation has been an intensive, multi-year process for the Patton College of Education, but continuous improvement of our education programs to prepare effective P-12 teachers has always been our top priority,” said PCOE Director of Teacher Education and Associate Professor of Education Coletta Parsley, Ed.D. “Meeting the rigorous CAEP Standards for Educator Preparation has helped us meet that goal and validates the high quality of our programs. Being a recipient of the 2022 Frank Murray Leadership Recognition for Continuous Improvement demonstrates our deep commitment to excellence in educator preparation and the high standards that we have met. Therefore, our current and prospective students can have confidence in the quality of our teacher education programs in successfully preparing them for P-12 classrooms.”

For more information on PCOE or UPIKE, email wewantyou@upike.eduor call 606-218-5251.