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March 20, 2008 Contacts: Bank Street College of Education Names
Anthony Asnes, Chair-elect of Bank Street's Board of Trustees and chair of the search committee, said: "Searching for someone to succeed 'Gussie' Kappner, who has served Bank Street as president for the past 13 years with such distinction and success, was quite a challenge. Fortunately we have found an exceptional new leader in Elizabeth Dickey, who was recommended unanimously and enthusiastically by the search committee. She shares Bank Street's values and philosophy, embraces our commitment to educational equity and social justice, and brings superb academic leadership skills honed at The New School University and Antioch to guide us in accomplishing our special mission serving educators, schools, and children and families." "I first heard the words 'Bank Street' decades ago," said President-elect Elizabeth Dickey, "when I joined a team researching children's playgrounds. As a developmental psychologist and experienced educator, my values are deeply linked to progressive higher education. It is a thrilling challenge to assume Bank Street's presidency at a time when the public appears to be prepared to pay a renewed degree of attention to questions of pedagogy and policy related to schools and to teaching. Today, issues of equity and effectiveness, teaching and testing, and achievement and accountability are so vitally important to our nation and its people. Bank Street is perfectly positioned to help lead the conversation. My commitment is to the sustainability of Bank Street, through connecting progressive ideals, a truly unique history and mission, and good business practices to assure our admired and beloved College thrives for years to come." Elizabeth Dickey, who will begin as President of Bank Street in August, 2008, comes to Bank Street from The New School, where she holds the position of University Professor. Dickey has served at The New School since 1991. She was Provost and Chief Academic Officer from 1998 to 2003, overseeing the academic affairs of eight academic divisions, ranging from politics to management to design to music, spread across six schools with 1,850 faculty members and a $165,000,000 budget. She gained a strong reputation at The New School for her commitments to: faculty development, academic innovation, and the educational uses of technology. Elizabeth Dickey was also one of three people who led the New School during its transition to president Bob Kerrey. Under her leadership, the New School expanded its offerings online, increased services for a wide range of students through such innovations as the University Writing Center, enhanced the institution's academic reputation, and built support for the university's programs from external communities. Like Bank Street College, the New School for Social Research -- as the university was first known -- is an institution founded in the progressive era. In that tradition, it maintains strong connections with New York's artistic and intellectual communities and shares many of the core values of Bank Street. While Dickey began her career as a scholar of adult development, her understanding and passion for building environments to nurture lifelong learning soon drew her to academic administration. For over a decade she served at Antioch University, a progressive institution grounded in the teaching of John Dewey and centered in experiential learning, eventually becoming Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Antioch, overseeing academic operations at twenty locations across the U.S. Prior to coming to the New School, she was University Dean for Academic Planning and Evaluation at City University of New York. In addition, she has been an independent consultant providing strategic planning, management and evaluation services for corporations, foundations, and universities including Bell Atlantic, US WEST, Philip Morris, MacArthur and Pew Foundations, University of Tennessee and Marymount College. Elizabeth Dickey earned a bachelor's degree from Lake Forest College in Art History and masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Psychology and Adult Development in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. Jonathan F. Fanton, President of The MacArthur Foundation and former president of The New School University, stated, "Elizabeth Dickey is one of the most creative and competent leaders in higher education and has the ability to articulate a vision that inspires confidence, commitment and financial resources. Elizabeth and Bank Street will be leaders in training the next generation of teachers. She cares deeply about the quality of teaching and learning. And, she understands how digital media is changing the way young people acquire content and analytical skills, as well as the way they engage with each other and civic issues." "Her training and experiences as an educator and innovative administrator," says Bank Street President Augusta ('Gussie') Souza Kappner, "give Elizabeth Dickey an understanding of an institution like Bank Street, which is unified in purpose but operates through distinctive divisions and departments. Her leadership style is grounded in collaboration and cooperation, and she has shown great skill in maintaining an institution's strength and coherence while supporting the needs of faculty and staff in diverse programs. I know that Elizabeth will be an effective champion for Bank Street in every arena, building on the College's strengths and extending its reach into new areas vital to improving the quality of learning and living for children and their families, teachers and educational leaders, and schools and communities throughout America and beyond." Bank Street College of Education has been described as a small college with a big voice in education, one heard and respected far and wide. It is located at 610 West 112th St in New York City and was founded in 1916 by visionary educator Lucy Sprague Mitchell as The Bureau of Educational Experiments, an experimental nursery school staffed by teachers, psychologists, and researchers. Bank Street has grown over the years to become an internationally-recognized leader in early childhood education, a pioneer in improving the quality of classroom education and teacher preparation, and a national advocate for children and families. It has had a unique impact on the New York City public schools, with over sixty years of onsite collaboration with those schools, and also a national impact on American education, through its key roles in the design of such innovative programs as Head Start and Follow Through, as well as its work in public school systems in cities across the country. The Bank Street website is: www.bankstreet.edu # # # Elizabeth Dickey and Augusta ('Gussie') Kappner are available for interviews. A jpeg of Elizabeth Dickey can be e-mailed. For further information contact:
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON BANK STREET COLLEGE OF EDUCATION FOLLOWS: Bank Street College of Education is a multifaceted institution. It's a Graduate School, which offers intensive, individualized master¡Ùs degree programs every year to 1,000 aspiring teachers and school leaders, conducts action-oriented research designed to improve teaching and learning, and works with public schools in New York City and in other cities. It is also a School for Children and Family Center, which together, offer unparalleled care and education to nearly 500 children each year. It's a Division of Continuing Education, which conducts much of the College¡Ùs extensive outreach work in a wide variety of schools and communities. And, it's a Publications and Media Group, which creates innovative materials for and about children in many forms, including books (the Little Golden Book series, Bank Street Readers & others), digital media, television, and websites. Bank Street College's proclaimed mission is: "to improve the education of children and their teachers by applying to the educational process all available knowledge about learning and growth, and by connecting teaching and learning meaningfully to the outside world. In so doing, we seek to strengthen not only individuals, but the community as well, including family, school, and the larger society in which adults and children, in all their diversity, interact and learn. We see in education the opportunity to build a better society." Bank Street's History: The 1990s as more children fell into poverty, Bank Street set up a number of programs to help children with high risk of dropping out of education. It established a Principals Institute to train principals, the Leadership Center to help students with leadership qualities, the New Beginnings project, a program for restructuring early childhood education in the Newark, NJ. public schools, the Liberty Partnerships Program to help keep disadvantaged young people in school and get them into college, The First Steps study and the Small Schools study, major research projects. Also, The Publications group collaborated with Macmillan/McGraw-Hill in developing curricular-based programs for the nation's schools and partnered with The New York Times Learning Annex to prepare daily online lesson plans used in every state and 85 countries worldwide. In recent years Bank Street has embarked upon a 5 year research study called Teachers For a New Era (TNE) to investigate what makes good teacher education today. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) has designated Bank Street as one of only three superb graduate schools of education in the country and the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has designated Bank Street as one of only five resource centers in America. Whether educating children, preparing outstanding teachers, remaking early childhood education in distressed cities, supporting adolescents through high school and on to college, conducting research into what constitutes excellent teacher education and how it influences children¡Ùs learning, publishing curricula and museum guides, preparing a new breed of principals, or working to improve high-needs schools, Bank Street is a leader in addressing the critical issues that face education in America today. |
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The Board of Trustees of BANK STREET COLLEGE OF EDUCATION has named ELIZABETH DUNBAR DICKEY as its next President. She will be only the 6th President in the 92-year history of Bank Street.