Dean René Antrop-González
Welcome to the School of Education at SUNY New Paltz!
Here at New Paltz we work to educate future and practicing teachers who are deeply versed in their academic disciplines and committed to education as a human right. Our faculty are committed to their roles as active agents of change, ensuring that the educational spaces in which we work, from our own college classes to the classrooms in which our graduates will teach, are sanctuaries and places of learning for peoples from her/historically marginalized groups. Our graduates leave our programs with the skills to teach their subjects deeply and insightfully and to respectfully approach the communities in which they work.
What We Offer
We offer undergraduate programs leading to New York State teacher certification in Early Childhood/Childhood Education and Adolescence Education (Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, English, Mathematics, Physics, and Social Studies). Upon graduation, teacher candidates are awarded teacher certification.
Many of our teacher candidates do their post-graduate education with us, working toward their master’s degree and professional certification in the School of Education. Our Graduate & Extended Learning Program includes specialty areas (Literacy, Special Education, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), as well as advanced degrees in Childhood and Adolescence Education. We also welcome students into our Master of Arts in Teaching programs, intended for those who have not taken education courses as an undergraduate.
What We Do
The SoE is a hub of professional development for future and current teachers. We are the lead center for the Mid-Hudson cohort of the New York State Master Teachers, hosting enrichment programs for highly skilled middle and high school mathematics and science teachers. New Paltz is also the site of the Hudson Valley Writing Project, a vital part of the National Writing Project that has brought writing practice, skills, and deep understanding of the writing process to participants from children to practicing teachers.
Our faculty's scholarly work at New Paltz ranges from extrapolating lessons from preschoolers’ play to deep examinations of the effects of structural racism. Our faculty have brought Black Lives Matter @ School, a national coalition organizing for racial justice in education, to the campus, working intensively with colleagues and students alike to brings awareness to the structural racism that has poisoned our society and schools.
Fieldwork and student teaching placements take our teacher candidates to school districts from urban centers (New York City is a popular option) to rural communities. Our intention is that all children are taught by teachers who are thoroughly grounded in their disciplines and pedagogically skilled.
Our teacher candidates take pride, and find a certain amount of joy, in developing respectful relationships with students, families, communities, and colleagues. We strive to meet the needs of all students, regardless of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, disability, language, religion, culture, national origin, epistemology, and family life, Further, we strive to continue the hard work of dismantling systemic racism and anti-Blackness, bringing an education and a fuller life to all children, in spite of the presence of institutional structures that often work to maintain the status quo.
Please join us in our work!
René Antrop-González
Professor and Dean of the School of Education
