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IU'S SCHOOL OF EDUCATION DEAN
RETIRING FROM POST IN JUNE 1999
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Donald Warren, university dean of the Indiana University School of Education since 1990, has announced his plans to retire from the post at the end of June 1999. He turns 65 this year, the upper age limit for IU administrators.
During Warren's tenure, the School of Education has grown dramatically as an institution of world influence. It is well known for preparing future teachers, educational leaders, counselors, instructional technology specialists, and faculty and administrators for colleges and universities.
Also widely respected are the faculty's contributions to innovative research, policy analysis and partnerships across the education professions.
Warren's leadership has been praised for promoting new programs, scholarly initiatives and international projects, while building on the School of Education's traditional strengths.
"Don did a wonderful job and quite remarkably," said Kenneth R.R. Gros Louis, vice president for academic affairs and Bloomington campus chancellor. "I have valued his counsel. When he finishes his nine years as dean next year, because of retirements and increased enrollments, he will have hired almost half of the current School of Education faculty members. This has had an enormous positive impact on the school and its future." Warren has been a member of the chancellor's advisory committee of academic deans since 1991.
"During the search process it became clear to us that the faculty and staff of the school were interested in a dean who would not only lead but would also take an active role in the school's day-to-day operation," said Frank Lester, a professor of mathematics education who co-chaired the search committee that selected Warren for the deanship. "It was also made clear to us that whoever became dean should do his or her best to make teacher education a much more prominent part of the mission of the School of Education.
"In my mind, Don Warren fulfilled both of these wishes. He clearly paid attention to the business of the school -- in fact, everyone who has knowledge of his dealings with the IU central administration says that Don served us extremely well! In addition, he took very seriously the mandate to make teacher education the central focus of the school."
Warren, who has received praise for the quality of the many faculty members appointed during his tenure, will concentrate on his own faculty work when he steps aside as the dean next July.
"Being dean has been challenging and unbelievably rewarding," Warren said. "When you have this much change in an institution -- and you can argue everything about the school was changing -- it is a critically important time. With opportunities provided by new faculty, new programs, new facilities and greater diversity among faculty, staff and students, people across the United States and in other countries took notice of the school's accomplishments." In recent national surveys, the IU School of Education is routinely ranked among the very best.
As dean, Warren has been particularly committed to efforts demonstrating the ways teaching and research complement each other. He appointed the task forces that began comprehensive reforms of teacher education on the IU campuses at Bloomington and Indianapolis and strengthened the structures of collaboration among the education faculties on all eight IU campuses. He supported the determination of the faculty at the Indianapolis campus (Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis) to emphasize the school's urban mission.
He also supported plans for a bilingual teacher preparation endorsement linking faculty in the School of Education and the College of Arts and Sciences, and initiatives to create new research centers on teacher education and the effects of technology on teaching and learning.
In addition, Warren encouraged formation of the Staff Council as an active voice in the School of Education and expanded roles for the Alumni Association Board of Directors. He also created the Dean's Advisory Council, a highly selective undergraduate honorary service society.
Born in Waco, Texas, Warren earned degrees at the University of Texas, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago, where he completed a Ph.D. degree in history and education. He was professor and chair of the department of education policy at the University of Maryland College of Education before arriving at IU in 1990.
A respected scholar, Warren has been president of the American Educational Studies Association, History of Education Society, and Council of Learned Societies in Education, and vice president of the American Educational Research Association. While at IU, among many other leadership appointments, he chaired an influential state task force on the continuing education of teachers and other school professionals and helped design a new national accreditation system for professional education, the Teacher Education Accreditation Council.
In 1992, Warren oversaw the move of the IU Bloomington School of Education into the new Wendell W. Wright Education Building. Regarded as the most technologically advanced school of education in the country, it has model classrooms, computer and audio-visual recording labs, and video conferencing studios. These state-of-the-art facilities support faculty and student research, and they have enabled the school to become a state, national and global leader in the integration of technology within its campus programs and in the delivery of courses to distant participants.
Warren viewed student learning as a top priority, and sought to appoint faculty who could maintain the commitment of their senior colleagues to this purpose. A strong faculty is the clearest structure that has emerged under Warren's leadership. He credits the achievement to his colleagues, noting that through the work of numerous search committees on the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses, outstanding scholar-teachers have joined the faculty and the number of women and minorities has risen sharply.
The school's endowment grew impressively during Warren's tenure, from about $2 million to almost $15 million, the largest of any school of education in the Big Ten. The current endowment campaign has led to the first endowed chairs within the School of Education: the Martha Lea and Bill Armstrong Chair in Teacher Education, the Barbara B. Jacobs Chair in Education and Technology, and the Otting Chair in Special Education. Funds for scholarships, fellowships and faculty research have multiplied.
As dean, Warren also led several School of Education responses to invitations from China and Vietnam to collaborate on higher education reform, particularly in areas of technology, teacher preparation, curriculum development and administrative reorganization. Visiting scholars and graduate students from these and other countries and numerous projects undertaken by individual faculty continue the school's longstanding tradition of international leadership. Through these efforts and the work of its alumni, the school's influence reaches into the world's major regions.
One of the school's challenges has been balancing its state, national and international activities. To meet it, faculty, staff and students have joined in devising a complex agenda of priorities. These include path-breaking research, innovative programs, partnerships with colleagues in the arts and sciences and the education professions, and strong commitment to inclusive educational opportunities. "No one said it would be easy," Warren acknowledged. "We have to be resolute in promoting academic rigor, pedagogical effectiveness and educational equity. Not only can't we choose among them, the nation and the world are watching how we fare."
An advocate of the traditional American belief in the value of education, Warren has emphasized the School of Education's public responsibilities. "These represent renewable promises," he explained, "primarily to the people of Indiana. We are, after all, a state institution, and we owe Hoosiers world-class educational leadership." Preparing more new teachers annually than any other Indiana college or university, the faculty view the education of educators as the school's oldest and most visible public duty.
"The problem for us," Warren added, "is that educational conditions and practices keep changing, yet the importance of teaching and learning in our society remains as urgent today -- perhaps even more so -- as in previous times."
"There is no end to the important work we can do," he said. "One measure of the school's success will be its continuing renaissance, staying current with advancing knowledge and technology to make sure we provide students with the best possible preparation."
(Sarah Baumgart, School of Education, 812-856-8005, baumgar@indiana.edu or Ellen Mathia, Office of Communications and Marketing, 812-855-0085, emathia@indiana.edu)