History
The Curry School of Education offers professional programs designed to prepare individuals for a variety of careers related to the practice of education. The school was named for Dr. Jabez L. M. Curry, an eminent southern educator. It was endowed in 1905 by gifts from John D. Rockefeller and the General Education Fund and became a professional school in 1919. Graduate programs in education were established in 1950, and the degree programs offered now include the Bachelor of Science in Education (B.S.Ed.); a five-year teacher education program leading to the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Master of Teaching (M.T.); the Master of Education (M.Ed.), Master of Teaching (M.T.), Educational Specialist (Ed.S.); and two doctoral degrees (Ed.D. and Ph.D.).
The School Today
The Curry School of Education has two major missions. The first is to prepare individuals to work in America’s educational system, pre-kindergarten through collegiate levels, and to conduct research and scholarship that address problems and issues of importance to our education system. Through partnerships with other organizations and educational institutions, the Curry School is committed to developing exemplary and innovative approaches to address those issues and problems, and to improving instruction and schooling in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As such, the Teacher Education Program has provided national leadership in the preparation of beginning teachers, as well as advanced training for experienced teachers and personnel related to teaching. The five-year Teacher Education Program is an integrated program sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Curry School of Education. It combines strong subject matter preparation with professional training that leads to teacher licensure and results in the simultaneous receipt of a bachelor’s and master’s degree after a total of five years of study at the University.
A second mission of the Curry School is to enhance human potential and performance by preparing professionals and conducting research in such areas as psychological/emotional development, physical development and fitness, and speech/language/auditory development. These areas contribute to the betterment of the human condition and are directly related to increased learning and successful experiences in the world-at-large.
Programs within the Curry School are among the best professional education offerings in the country. Faculty hold offices in professional organizations, are scholars of international renown, and are numbered among the University’s finest teachers. Students score well above the national norms on the national examinations, and are members of such student honorary societies as Chi Sigma Iota, Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Delta Kappa, Outstanding Students in America, and the Raven Society.
Extensive information about the Curry School of Education and its programs is available on the web, http://curry.virginia.edu.
