Dean’s Welcome Archive

Dear College of Education Community,

I am excited to welcome everyone back to campus this fall as we head into the university’s 150^thanniversary! For those returning, I hope you had a restful and uplifting summer. For those of you who are new to the College, we are delighted to have you join us. TCU’s Sesquicentennial is a time to celebrate the institution, honor our history, celebrate the alums that have come before us and the impact they’ve made around the world, and reflect on the university’s future in working toward the greater good. In this sesquicentennial spirit, I highlight some of our College’s ongoing work and mention a few changes you’ll likely see.

The College of Education continues to garner national attention as the recognition of our faculty increases, and the quality of research/scholarship grows in importance. Our faculty continue to publish in high-tier journals and are awarded state and federal grants. The College of Education is currently in the top 20 private graduate schools of education in the country.

This fall marks the second year of partnering with Fort Worth ISD (FWISD) and the implementation of our counseling clinic in the Carter-Riverside Neighborhood. This collaboration has been an enormous success, and more families from this area of Fort Worth are being supported through the counseling clinic. The Assistant Principal Leadership Academy (APLA), with our partners FWISD, Neeley School Business, and New Leaders, will launch its first cohort of assistant principals later this fall. The APLA prepares experienced assistant principals to move into the principalship and thrive in their roles. Finally, the College is in its third year of partnering with Deans for Impact on the integration of “Learning by Scientific Design” with our Early Childhood through Sixth-Grade program. This work will make the science of how students learn more accessible to our teacher candidates here at TCU and will distinguish our program, graduates, and the impact they will have on their PK-12 students.

You might also see some new faces in the College. We’re pleased to have five outstanding faculty and one post-doc join us this fall. We’ve hired senior faculty leaders in their respective fields and junior professors with bright futures. Thirty-three percent of faculty in the College of Education come from underrepresented backgrounds.

The College of Education now has three new departments: Teaching & Learning Sciences, Higher Education & Educational Leadership, and Counseling, Social Change, & Inquiry. We’ve made this change to cultivate more leadership among our faculty, allow students to create a stronger identity within their programs of study, and increase faculty governance at the program and department levels. As you can see, we’ve been busy.

As we gather together again, we must all do our part to Protect the Purple. Visit covid-19.tcu.edu to learn about the latest COVID-19 protocols at TCU with the guidance of local health authorities.

Even within this long welcome, there are many important ways that our College is addressing and meeting the public challenges of our communities that I’ve not included here. I am incredibly proud of the remarkable research, teaching, and service done by our faculty, staff, students, and alums across the United States and the world. This is how we maintain the excellence for which our College is known.

Best wishes for the year ahead.

Dean Frank Hernandez – Go Frogs!

Dear Horned Frog Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Community Members,

Welcome Home!

As I begin my second year as Dean of Education here at TCU, I’d like to welcome everyone back to campus; we’ve missed you! During the start of the year, there’s been a lot of discussion about when we’ll get “back to normal.” As the COVID count continues to rise in Texas and across the nation, it’s becoming clearer to me that we may not know the answer to that question anytime soon. However, I am working diligently with my fellow deans and the Office of the Provost to organize an academic year focused on the well-being and health of all of us, academic excellence in the classroom and with our scholarship and creative activities, and the ability to pivot and adapt to the ever-changing situation.

What I do know, and what I have observed, is that faculty, staff and our student body have returned to campus more compassionate, more sensitive, and more willing to take the time to check-in with each other. I am so proud of what we have accomplished together during this unprecedented time in our country’s history. We have all faced unbelievable personal and professional demands, but in the midst of these challenges, it has brought out the best in everyone.

During this unprecedented time, we’ve also been able to strengthen our ongoing partnerships and have created new ones. With Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD), and with the support of an anonymous gift, we will be opening the TCU College of Education Counseling Clinic in the Carter-Riverside Neighborhood of Fort Worth. This is yet another example of the value that the College of Education is bringing to our community partners. The Center for Public Education and Community Engagement (CPECE), with its new name, is “open for business.” CPECE is engaged with program evaluation and already starting to collaborate with partners on meaningful research.  These groups include: The Rainwater Charitable Foundation, The Morris Foundation, and Dallas Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation.  More projects are in the works and early indications are that CPECE can fill a need in the Fort Worth community. 

The College of Education will also be launching Maestro, a new initiative to increase the number of highly qualified Latinx male teachers in K–12 classrooms by supporting the efforts of young Latinx men to earn their bachelor’s degree and their teaching credentials. Maestro will recruit, prepare, place, and support Latinx men as they endeavor to earn their degrees and their teaching credentials. As a result of Maestro, a growing number of Latinx men will enroll in and, with their teaching credentials in hand, graduate from TCU and the COE. This will mark an increase in the number of Latinx men entering the teaching ranks, resulting in more Latino male teachers serving as role models for the youth whom they teach and guide.

I will make every effort to respond to students, faculty, staff and community members questions and concerns. I’m thankful for the suggestions, questions and concerns I’ve already received. We’re in this together. I wish you a safe and wonderful academic year.

Frank Hernandez
Dean

Dear Horned Frog Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Community Members,

Let me begin by sharing with all of you what an honor it is to serve as Dean of the College of Education here at Texas Christian University. In the last several months, I’ve seen the fighting spirit of the College of Education faculty, staff and students. I am so proud of what we have accomplished together during this unprecedented time in our country’s history. We have all faced unbelievable personal and professional demands, but in the midst of all of these challenges, it has brought out the best in all of us.

By way of introduction, I am the child of a mother who was a migrant worker for most of her teenage years and also served as a domestic worker when she was not picking cotton and vegetables in Texas. She later opened her own business and served as a small business owner for twenty years. My father had many different jobs but found a career as a chrome plater and retired from that line of work. While neither of them had an opportunity to earn their high school diplomas, both have served as an inspiration to me, and have supported me unconditionally as I fulfilled my own dreams. I grew up in the Elmer Scott Housing Projects in West Dallas. My maternal grandparents lived in a West Dallas Barrio called Ledbetter. I lived my life between those two communities until we moved to the Midwest. As a first-generation college graduate, I was drawn to a career in education as a way to improve my own life opportunities, particularly in light of my parents’ struggles. Likewise, I saw education as a way to lift other people out of various devastating circumstances and, in the process, to fight social injustice. As of 2020 I have served for 30 years in both K-12 and higher education.

As you browse through our website, I hope you can see that our focus is on providing the best learning experiences for our students and that we believe in building strong partnerships locally and globally. You will also see that our graduates are leaders in their communities. Whether they are teachers, principals, counselors and/or working for a nonprofit, they have a sense of purpose and are the ethical leaders that our communities need and deserve. You will also see that our College of Education is the only educator preparation program in the United States with two on-campus laboratory schools in special education: Starpoint School and KinderFrogs School.

Finally, we are doing all of this work during a pandemic that has had a devastating impact on communities of color here in Texas and across the United States. We are also doing this work as our country comes to terms with its treatment of communities of color in general and our Black communities and citizens specifically. We want to be a part of the solution, so our college has made diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) a core element of our mission and vision for ourselves and our students. We will continue to challenge ourselves by asking, “How will the TCU campus and our Fort Worth communities know we’re committed to DEI”? and, “How will our Black colleagues, our Black students, and our Black community members know that we believe, ‘Black Lives Matter’?” Our college will not shy away from addressing the systemic racism that has permeated every aspect of our society. These questions and others will drive our work with DEI and will keep us focused on the challenges at hand, because we believe education is one of the tools for creating a more just and inclusive world. Disrupting these systems of oppression will only happen if we are willing to “say her name”!

Frank Hernandez
Dean