Nature and Purpose

The Master of Arts in Education is a program designed for educators who seek a hands-on, interactive, professional growth experience that emphasizes real-world application of current theory and best practices. Special emphasis is placed on expanding and enriching content knowledge, enhancing classroom instruction, and serving the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. This program brings people with multifaceted and, at times, conflicting perspectives together in a richer and more complex search for what is reliable, worthwhile, and true. When such people come together, we are able to achieve one of the highest purposes of education – a community that respects every individual within it.

The coursework fosters an integration of knowledge and disciplinary specialization with academic exposure outside of education as an integral part of the program. This holistic rationale is an approach to education that emphasizes a teacher’s not only being truly present to students, but also teaching, loving and respecting them. Such teachers expect competence and compassion of their students, a solid grasp of subject matter, and a living awareness of the inescapably moral and spiritual dimension of education and life. Accordingly, this program emphasizes a total view of curriculum and instruction, one that promotes ethics, service, learner-centered philosophy, uniqueness of the individual, and application of theory into practice in the school setting.