AACTE’s Diverse Membership
As a board member and officer of AACTE, I have grown to appreciate the complexity of the organization. A remarkable variety of institutions opt to unite around common interests under this “big tent” association.
Of course, you may think about AACTE membership from your own institutional perspective. Members of the Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education (AILACTE) may view AACTE as their organization, just as members of the Council of Academic Deans from Research Education Institutions (CADREI) may view us from their perspective. Certainly, members of the Teacher Education Council of State Colleges and Universities (TECSCU), where the largest number of new educators are taught, think of AACTE from their perspective. In fact, the Board of Directors is designed to reflect the various institutional types within AACTE, with designated seats for AILACTE, CADREI, and TECSCU representatives as well as for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities and historically Black institutions. In reality, AACTE represents the entire array of U.S. teacher preparation institutions.
In addition, our membership is made up of public, private not-for-profit, and private for-profit institutions.
Member Institutions
Our members offer an array of innovative preparation models in varied settings, including urban residencies, postbaccalaureate and dual-degree programs, accelerated and virtual course work, and other models. We are strengthened by the membership of Arkansas Tech University and Michigan State University, Walden University and the University of Phoenix, Five Towns College and Salem International University.
We are further diverse by size of program; some of our members have fewer than 20 teacher candidates; others have over a thousand. All together, our members serve over 200,000 students preparing to become teachers.
Representing teacher preparation in all of its diverse forms, AACTE doesn’t advocate for one type of institution over another. We are “the leading voice for teacher preparation”—not the leading voice for a single type of institution.
Especially during times when our profession is under close scrutiny and criticism, it is important to remember what brings us all together: our mission and core values. Together, we advocate and build capacity for high-quality educator preparation programs.
Tags: AACTE governance, diversity, membership
