Mission Statement

The mission of the Denison University Department of Education is to provide a foundation for:

• Thinking critically about teaching and learning in the context of contemporary society
• Service or careers in non-school settings, such as social work, counseling, nonprofit organizations, educational publishing, leadership development, and business-related teaching
• Critical analysis of important educational issues in our society.

The department is committed to developing in students an appreciation of the power of learning to transform people and society, in the sense that individuals have the potential for constant growth and in the sense that education can be a force toward improvement in the life of the community and society at large.

We see ourselves acting in concert with the Denison University mission statement that emphasizes autonomous thought, moral agency, and active citizenship for all Denison students. Each student in the college, and therefore also in the Department of Education, is to become informed broadly by the liberal arts, grounded in one or more chosen disciplines, and capable of thinking across disciplines. The department’s focus on active learning and engagement in the liberal arts grows out of a profound belief in the transformative power of education.

The program emphasizes the development of habits associated with praxis, a concept in which reflection grows out of experience and is prelude and catalyst to action, particularly action that shares power and challenges injustice. Toward this end, we explore the strengths of human diversity as represented in the various facets of our identities: ethnicity, race, culture, religion, socio-economic location, (dis)ability, sexual orientation, and gender identity.  Through this process, students come to recognize they are transformed as they learn, unlearn, and relearn in continuous ways that become life-long habits. The department intends that our graduates work throughout their professional and personal lives encountering, defining, and solving problems in continuous active engagement with the central issues of their time.

Our purpose is that our graduates continue to develop powers of analysis concerning both the individual learner and the many systems within which education takes place.  Our
commitment is to thinking and acting ethically concerning social equality, educational equity, justice, freedom of thought, peacemaking, and fair distribution of resources and
opportunities.