Secretary of the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) Cheryl Craig initiated a project of vital importance to the organization’s membership. Members wanted to know how teaching and teacher education (frequently called curriculum and instruction) was supported and advanced by deans of education throughout the world. 

Craig, a professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction (CUIN) began the work in 2013 by writing competitive symposium proposals that were accepted for presentation at the American Educational Research Association Meeting in San Francisco and the biennial ISATT Conference held in Ghent (Belgium). The project morphed into the 2015 Routledge book co-edited by Reneé Clift (University of Arizona), John Loughran (Monash University), Geoffrey Mills (Southern Oregon University) and Cheryl Craig (University of Houston).

Deans who contributed chapters included Peter Gronn (Cambridge University), Theo Wubbels (Utrecht University), Peter Grimmett (University of British Columbia), Donna Wiseman (University of Maryland) and Kari Smith (University of Bergen), among others.

Jennifer Gore (University of Newcastle), a rare female dean from Australia, discussed gender, power and authority issues rampant in the academy. Michael Schratz (University of Innsbruck) likened education deans to cultural leaders in their buildings. Douwe Beijaard (Eindhoven University of Technology) maintained that a dean’s presence to faculty in universities is just as important as a teacher’s presence to students in schools. The purpose is not to administer or judge, he said, but “to affirm” the scholarship and contributions of individual faculty members. 

In the concluding chapter, Cheryl Craig and Lily Orland-Barak (Dean of Education, University of Haifa [Israel’s most research intensive university]) adopted the Australian term of deaning (borrowed from Loughran and Gore) and connected it with Schratz’s Austrian concepts of the duties and desires of the deanship. The knowledge base of deaning, the language of deaning, identity and deaning, expertise and deaning, and the dark side of deaning formed other important themes.

The volume, which is the first of its kind to address the deanship internationally, calls for the continued study of the role of the dean. It explicitly connects the state of teaching and teacher education in communities and countries to the priorities set by college of education deans.

 “It was a pleasure to work with my distinguished international colleagues on this project. It was reassuring to the ISATT membership to know that leading international research universities were making teaching and teacher education a top priority,” said Craig.

She added: “My favorite part was something that never made its way into the book. At one point, I casually asked Lily (my co-author) what portion of her college’s budget was earmarked for curriculum and instruction. Without hesitation, she replied: “Twice as much as any other department in my college.”  She then explained: “My university’s reputation and future rests on how successful the children in the local schools are.”

“This volume draws much needed attention to the importance of Curriculum and Instruction,” said Jennifer Chauvot, UH College of Education CUIN chair.  “We are very proud of Cheryl Craig’s contributions to the teacher education community.”

The book, which is available in both hard and soft cover, is currently used in deanship preparation courses and seminars in several parts of the world.