Date: May 3, 2004
Contact: Michael Hopkins
Phone: (708) 534-7090
Fax: (708) 534-8399
Email: m-hopkins@govst.edu
For Immediate Release
University Park, May 3, 2004 – Governors State University’s College of Education announced today that two of its professors, Drs. Linda Buyer and Karen Peterson, have been nominated to the Board of Examiners for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).
NCATE is a national accrediting body for colleges and departments of education. It assesses and accredits colleges using performance-based standards, which means accredited programs must prove that their candidates are well-prepared for and competent within the classroom environments they will teach in.
Within that process, the Board of Examiners conducts on-site visits and evaluation of colleges and programs.
“If there’s a gold standard in teacher education,” explained college spokesperson Nick Battaglia, “NCATE is it.”
Battaglia said NCATE accreditation is universally recognized as the mark of superior academic programming and, more important, student performance in the field.
As Board of Examiner members, Buyer and Peterson will undergo week-long training prior to joining accreditation site teams. Then they will conduct national evaluations of teacher education programs.
Each will serve a three year term.
“NCATE has made a great choice here,” said Dr. Roger Bennett, interim dean for the college. “Dr. Buyer and Dr. Peterson are outstanding scholars and educators. They’ll do stellar service for NCATE and teacher education across the nation.”
Governors State’s own teacher education programs recently earned NCATE accreditation with no program weaknesses found.
Dr. Buyer is a professor of psychology at the university. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1989. A resident of Chicago, Buyer has been a professor at Governors State for 10 years. She has served as acting dean for the College of Education, as well as interim chair for the Division of Psychology and Counseling. Buyer was an assistant professor at Roosevelt University from 1989 to 1990 and an assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame from 1990 to 1994. She served as an Illinois State Board of Education representative on two joint ISBE/NCATE site visits, one in April of 2003 and another in April 2004. Her current research area is problem solving and learning.
Dr. Peterson is a professor of Education and director of the university’s innovative Alternative Teacher Certification program and Beginning Teacher Induction/Mentoring program.
A Flossmoor resident, Peterson formerly taught second and fifth grades in Blue Island School District 130. She earned her Ed.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1995, where she was recognized for Outstanding Dissertation. Her areas of interest and research include induction and mentoring, alternative teacher certification, and multicultural education. She has taught at GSU for 11 years.
