Albright College has received approval from the Pennsylvania Department of Education to grant a graduate, master’s program in education leading to the M.A. or M.S. degree. The College’s Graduate and Professional Division will launch the program in September 2002.

The master’s degree in education offers four concentrations: general education, elementary education, special education or early childhood education.
The Albright master’s degree in education includes a core liberal arts “strand” and requires students to take nine credits in science, history and English. The program requires a total of 39 credits.

Students can attend full- or part-time, and financial aid is available.

President Henry A. Zimon, said, “Albright’s master’s degree in education continues Albright’s long tradition of excellence in preparing educators. We are pleased to be able to expand Albright’s outstanding work in education to a new level. The unique liberal arts component, plus the emphasis on research, adds both breadth of scope and depth to the curriculum. Our goal is not just to prepare teachers, but to prepare teachers to be leaders in their profession.”

The master’s curriculum was designed by Professors Sarel P. Fuchs and Rodney E. Warfield.

According to Fuchs, chair of Albright’s Education Department, “Albright’s program is focused on ‘reflective practice.’”

“We want teachers to examine critically the theory that underlies best teaching practice, and to effect positive change in our schools,” she said. “As we teach undergraduates to ask “how,’ we encourage graduate students to ask ‘why’ so they can provide creative solutions to problems of schools and society.”

The master’s degree in education also offers Albright undergraduates a combined “4+1” program that earns both the bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education in five years.

For information about the master’s degree in education, contact Melissa Wardwell, director of graduate studies, at 610-921-7856 or 1-888-253-8851.

David C. Stinebeck, Ph.D. has been named the first provost of Albright College. Stinebeck will be officially installed as provost in May.

The position of provost, the chief academic officer and dean of the College, is a newly created position at Albright and will expand the responsibilities of the current position of vice president of academic affairs. Stinebeck will oversee 94 full-time faculty and 43 adjunct faculty, and all academic programs including those of Albright’s Graduate and Professional Division.

“With growing enrollments, numerous new faculty positions and expanding academic programs for both traditional and non-traditional students, as well as a new graduate program, Albright was ready to expand the role of our chief academic officer,” said President Henry A. Zimon of Stinebeck’s appointment. “The role of the new provost at Albright College is essential to carrying the mission of the College forward to meet our new academic strategic goals.”

“Coming to Albright College as the College’s first provost is an honor that I view as the culmination of a serious administrative career,” said Stinebeck. “I have been extremely impressed with the warmth and professionalism of the Albright community and look forward to helping guide it to even greater success.”

A noted author and scholar in the field of American literature, Stinebeck was formerly dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. Previously he was professor of English and chair of the department of English at the University of Rhode Island. He also taught at Idaho State University, Dartmouth College and Union College in New York.

Stinebeck’s academic fields include all periods of American literature, as well as American intellectual history, particularly the Colonial period, and Native American cultures. His publications include two books, Shifting Worlds: Social Change and Nostalgia in the American Novel, and Puritans, Indians and Manifest Destiny, co-authored with Charles Segal. He is finishing a novel on the Civil War.

Stinebeck holds both doctoral and master’s degrees in American Studies from Yale University. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Stanford University.

He is a member of the editorial boards of the American Transcendental Quarterly and the American Indian Culture and Research Journal.

Stinebeck currently resides in Guilford, Conn. His wife, Ellen, is a marriage and family therapist. They have two grown sons and a daughter.