The College of Education is committed to creating an intellectual environment that promotes student success through quality on campus and technology-based instruction, significant research and external funding, and professional service. Our mission as an HSI & AANAPISI College of Education is to prepare learners to address contemporary challenges by:
- Advancing equity and access through innovative scholarship, practice, and advocacy
- Enhancing our communities through collaborative outreach and engagement
- Delivering high-quality services, educational programs, and initiatives that promote social justice and well-being
Particular attention is focused on four areas:
- Workforce development
- High-quality education and mental health access
- High-quality early childhood education and teacher education for future K-12 educators
- Education and mental health policy leadership
We are committed to creating a learning environment that promotes and supports a culture of diversity, social justice, equity, and inclusion. Collaboration among students, faculty, other professionals, and community members is essential to being a premier college of education; strong reciprocal relationships with community partners enrich the intellectual and cultural vitality of the community.
We provide dynamic graduate programs that welcome students into field-based practice and research, offering them exciting opportunities to study at a nationally recognized, research-intensive university situated within one of the fastest growing cities and school districts in the country.
In addition to completing research through coursework and program benchmarks, students engage in research through funded graduate assistantships and as student volunteers, working with faculty on grants and research projects or working with the outstanding centers, labs, institutes, and offices that conduct community-based and applied scholarship.
We offer graduate programs (e.g. master, educational specialist, and doctoral degrees) in:
- Addiction studies
- Career and technical education
- Clinical mental health counseling
- Counselor education and supervision
- Curriculum and instruction
- Early childhood education
- Educational policy and leadership
- Educational psychology
- Elementary education
- Global teaching
- Higher education
- Intercollegiate and professional sport management
- K-8 integrated STEM education
- Learning sciences
- Mixed methods research
- Multicultural, social justice and global education
- Multilingual education
- Online teaching and training
- Professional training and development
- Qualitative research
- School counseling
- School psychology
- Secondary education
- Special education
- Teacher education
- Workforce education leadership
We also offer post-baccalaureate certificates and programs for initial teacher licensure and additional license endorsements.
Programs operate in four departments:
- Counselor Education, School Psychology, and Human Services
- Early Childhood, Multilingual, and Special Education
- Educational Psychology, Leadership, & Higher Education
- Teaching & Learning.
Our outstanding graduate faculty are nationally and internationally recognized for their scholarship and leadership in their respective disciplines.
We are accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), which is an independent, non-profit membership organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the regional authority on educational quality and institutional effectiveness of higher education institutions in the seven-state Northwest region of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. It fulfills its mission by establishing accreditation criteria and evaluation procedures by which institutions are reviewed. The COE is also accredited by the State of Nevada and the National Association of School Psychologists.
Danica G. Hays, Ph.D., Dean
Jon Hilpert, Ph.D., Interim Associate Dean of Research and Sponsored Projects
Jeff Shih, Ph.D., Associate Dean of Student and Community Engagement
Kenneth J. Varner, Ph.D., Associate Dean for Academic Programs & Initiatives
Programs
Counselor Education, School Psychology, and Human Services
Early Childhood, Multilingual, and Special Education
Educational Psychology, Leadership, and Higher Education
Teaching and Learning
College Information
College of Education
Dean’s Office