ADVANCING THE COLLEGE
A Profound Gift for Early Childhood Education
Ali, Nancy, and Chuck Clarvit
T
he College of Education extends its gratitude to the Clarvit family for their recent gift, a leadership investment in a new Center for Early Childhood Education and Intervention, to be undertaken in partnership with the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). Because of the great need for research, resources, and training in this area, the creation of a center for fostering children’s social, moral, and cognitive development is an urgent priority for the region and the nation. The growth of the Early Childhood/Early Childhood Special Education (EC/ECSE) program – an interdisciplinary venture of the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology and the Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education – has positioned the College of Education excellently to meet these needs. The Clarvits have donated seed funding to the enterprise, allowing the College to direct resources towards the Center’s development, demonstrate our commitment to the EC/ECSE program, and support faculty’s efforts to forge a rich collaboration with MSDE. The new Center envisioned by the College will be devoted to high-quality research on early childhood and special education as well as early intervention programs and strategies. The Center will aim to inform state and federal policy, translate research into scalable
education programs and evidence-based best practices, build capacity in schools and communities, and promote families’ engagement in their children’s education. Taking advantage of the vast K-12 database, the Maryland Longitudinal Data System, the Center’s faculty will provide professional development through leadership and curricular programs, an annual research symposium, and summer institutes for educators, and will also collaborate with early childhood advisory councils, school systems, and community organizations to improve children’s academic outcomes. With the rollout of universal prekindergarten and early intervention in Maryland, the Center will take on a special relevance to the state’s education system, and the total scope of potential influence is far-reaching. The Center’s activities will have direct impacts on schools and communities surrounding the University of Maryland and throughout the state, including ensuring Maryland schools’ competitiveness for the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge and Preschool Development grants from the U.S. Department of Education. The Center will help the College attract the most outstanding students and best-in-class faculty, placing us at the forefront of research in the field, and its relationship with the EC/ ECSE program will afford our students the best possible access to facilities and mentorship, as well as the best opportunities for research, ensuring that they become exceptionally trained to serve in schools and communities. And not least, the Center will tap into the College of Education’s potential for leadership – for making national impacts in a critical, burgeoning arena of education.
…the creation of a center for fostering children’s social, moral, and cognitive development is an urgent priority for the region and the nation. Chuck and Nancy Clarvit have a longstanding relationship with the University of Maryland. Nancy studied advertising and design in the College of Arts and Humanities, graduating in 1978. Their daughter, Ali Clarvit, matriculated in the College of Education, earning her M.Ed. in special education, and spoke at our commencement ceremony last year. With this generous gift, the Clarvits have demonstrated an affinity for the College’s vision. We thank them for helping us make the Center for Early Childhood Education and Intervention a reality for the College of Education, the University, and the state of Maryland.
FALL 2015
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