Mission Statement and Goals

The faculty of the Hofstra University School of Education, Health and Human Services are dedicated to the preparation of reflective and knowledgeable professionals who use scholarship to inform their practice. Collectively, we strive toward a more just, open and democratic society as we collaborate with and learn from children, adolescents, and adults in diverse social and cultural settings.

We encourage and support the scholarship and practice of our colleagues and students in their professional lives; our endeavors include research that contributes to the knowledge base for both educators and health and human services professionals. Thus, it is our intent to establish the School of Education, Health and Human Services as a place which nurtures communication, collaboration, and leadership both at Hofstra and in community settings.

For the undergraduate component of the initial program, then, the goals of the School of Education, Health and Human Services include:

The cooperative education of students well-rounded both professionally and in the liberal arts and sciences;
The first professional training of entry-level professionals who will serve in the public and independent schools of the region and nation;
The development of analytic skills and sound judgments applied to content and also to professional issues; the ability to make warranted and thoughtful decisions about curriculum issues and student-related issues as well as issues relating to the conduct of the schools and the profession;
To set the groundwork for continued learning by the new professional, whether that learning is through job-related experiences or graduate study applicable toward professional certification.

For those students whose initial professional education occurs on the graduate level, as in our M.S. in Education programs in secondary or elementary education, in special education, in literacy or in counselor education, our goals are similar but not identical. For these graduate students, we regularly require the prior completion of an undergraduate degree either in the liberal arts and sciences or in business. Thus, the task of achieving a general education with its breadth and depth has been achieved either at Hofstra or at another university. We assume this task has already been successfully completed and devote the bulk of our efforts to the professional education of the graduate student.

Thus, for the graduate component of the initial programs, our goals include:

The education of a well-rounded individual in the professional and general education senses;
The professional training of entry-level professionals who will serve the public and independent schools of the area and nation;
The development of analytic skills and sound judgments applied to content and also to professional issues; the ability to make warranted and thoughtful decisions about curriculum issues and student-related issues as well as issues relating to the conduct of the school and the profession;
To set the groundwork for continued learning throughout the student's professional career.

The goals of our advanced programs are given in greater detail in each department's publications, but common to all are:

To further develop entry-level abilities through an initial professional program;
To provide specialized professional educational opportunities for persons with initial or professional teaching certification;
To provide opportunities for career development for persons without preservice professional educational preparation, e.g., creative arts therapy, counseling, research and evaluation, and rehabilitation counseling;
To provide opportunities or career specializations for certified teachers as administrators, counselors or as specialists in literacy, special education and early childhood education;
To afford teachers the opportunities to study education as a discipline in depth as in the master's degree program in foundations of education.