Adrian College to Pursue NCATE Accreditation
Teacher Education program should achieve honor within four years.

Students just starting off in Adrian College’s teacher preparation program may have a valuable extra bonus when they finish the program – the right to claim they graduated from a nationally-accredited program.

Dr. Jeffrey R. Docking, Adrian College president, recently announced the College’s decision to pursue accreditation through NCATE, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. NCATE’s standards for teacher education are widely recognized as among the highest in the nation. Currently, only 12 of Michigan’s teacher preparation institutions have achieved this recognition.

Tim Frusti, recently-appointed chair of the teacher education department, is confident that accreditation is possible within four years and will help make a good program even better.

“Our administration is deeply committed to excellence,” Frusti said. “With this commitment to pursue national accreditation, the exciting changes taking place with our campus facilities and student activities will soon also be seen in our academic offerings.”

Prior to coming to Adrian, Frusti served as dean of the School of Education at Concordia University in Ann Arbor, where he helped guide the process of gaining initial accreditation from NCATE.

“It was an amazing challenge, but when we were finished, the program earned high praise from NCATE and from the Michigan Department of Education,” he stated. “We have the talent and the resources to accomplish even greater things here.”

The goal of pursuing NCATE accreditation, first proposed by the department a year ago, was approved this summer by Dale Nesbary, Adrian’s vice president and dean of academic affairs, Work toward reaching the goal is already underway. Over the summer, two new full-time faculty members were added to the department, and arrangements have been made for Frusti to attend NCATE’s training conference in Washington, D.C., at the end of September.