HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WDAM) – The University of Southern Miss is getting ready for commencement, but the upcoming graduation isn’t the only event the university is celebrating.
A recent national report is tapping USM having one of the top education schools in the country.
The school is now 99th among the best education schools in the nation according to U.S. News and World 2024 report.
“This means that we are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing,” said Southern Miss’s College of Education and Human Sciences Dean Dr. Trent Gould. “The University of Southern Mississippi is still doing great things in teacher education. We are still producing effective teachers and leaders to go into every one of these buildings and we are creative innovative programming, and we are going and getting the grants that we need to get to train these teachers.”
The rankings evaluate programs on nine distinct factors. These include indicators related to student selectivity, faculty resources, research activity, and peer assessment.
In 2023, USM was ranked No. 138, and Gould said breaking into the top 100 wouldn’t be possible without those who have worked so hard to help create future Mississippi educators.
“All the credit for this goes to the faculty, and the staff, and the administrators, in the school of education,” Gould said. “It’s through them waking up every day trying to connect to the mission of this college to try and improve K-12 outcomes.”
Jennifer Turner, a graduate student in the Golden Eagle Teacher Residency Program, is just over a week away from graduation. She’s wrapping up her time teaching English Language Arts in the fourth grade.
“Being in the actual classroom for the year has been very substantial to us learning. being hands on helps a lot,” Turner said. “The coursework of course is a rigorous program, but it is so worth it. it has been a very eye-opening experience, and it prepares us a lot more being in the actual classroom.”
The USM School of Education offers an undergraduate program in elementary education, and numerous graduate programs, including but not limited to, higher education, special education, dyslexia therapy and educational research.
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