The looming end of a prominent UNM elementary education program came down to the wire this week, but it will continue for at least another year due to a last minute budget extension.
The Natural Sciences Program, originally set for cancellation after the spring semester, was given a one-year extension. The program provides physical science, life science and environmental science courses for future kindergarten through eighth grade educators.
Mark Peceny, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said the proposed discontinuation came as a result of the University going through a 1.5 percent budget cut this year.
“The College of Arts and Sciences takes very seriously its responsibility to provide the content courses our future teachers need to succeed in the classroom,” Peceny said.“The Natural Science Program has done a fine job serving future elementary and middle school educators. “
Mel Strong, a professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the discontinuation should have never been an option in the first place.
“I feel like this is a no-brainer requirement of the University, this is what the University should be doing. We should not be having a discussion about this,” he said.
The Natural Sciences Program is made up of three classes, four credits each, he said. It was Strong who called a meeting with the dean of the College of Education to try and convey to him the importance of the classes for people who want to become elementary school teachers.
Peceny said that the budget was not the only factor in putting an end to the program.
“We are seriously considering discontinuing this program only because we are confident that our future K-8 educators can get exactly what they need from the new and reformed core curriculum science courses that have been created or improved over the past four years,” Paceny said.
However, Strong said that the Natural Sciences Program is absolutely necessary for future teachers, and that the effects of this education are far reaching.
“For every one of my students, a career in elementary education (means), let’s say, they have 30 kids a year and teach for 30 years; that’s 900 kids,” he said. “So, our impact is farther than this group of 32 in here.”
The program was started 20 years ago at UNM, Strong said, by Laura Crossey, Katherine Watkins and others. It was born through a statewide agreement that natural science classes would be offered at every University in New Mexico, including branch campuses, so that credits are easily transferable between schools across the states.
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“This is a program that was born at UNM and now, if it’s cancelled, (UNM) will be the only campus that doesn’t offer it,” Strong said. “I would call it irony.”
He said the program addressed the problem that those who seek to teach elementary education don’t have the necessary courses to do so. For example, a course like Physics 101 doesn’t provide the subject matter that a teacher would provide from kindergarten through sixth or eighth grade.
The Natural Sciences Program provides a way for aspiring teachers to learn the appropriate material. Within the three classes that make up the program, students are taught science topics that will be relevant as future teachers, and in a way that’s more relevant to how they’re going to teach it, Strong said.
“In other words... you sit in the big lecture hall and you’re in there with 250 people. Well, you’re not going to do that in 3rd grade,” Strong said. “What you are going to do in the 3rd grade, it’s going to be something hands on. It’s going to be something creative.”
When Strong joined the program in 2008 as a part-time instructor, he said there were two full-time non-tenured lecturers and three other part-time instructors. Now Strong is the only lecturer left, as a result of what he said was the program being trimmed down over the years.
In 2008, Strong said, the program offered nine total courses across three sections. That number has been cut to five this semester. Further, all night classes were cancelled this semester.
“This program should be growing not shrinking,” Strong said.
The program is cheap at this point, he said. For example, he said that for the average salary of a tenured professor in any department, “you get paid for two of me, two part time instructors and still have money left over,” he said.
He said because instructors in the program don’t get paid very much, it isn’t a significant financial burden to the University.
Strong said that although money is the driving force for the University, the same does not apply to those who value this program.
“You rarely find anybody who is in the education field who’s doing it for the money,” he said. “That includes me and it includes all the students I have who are going to become teachers.”
Strong said that a possible future stoppage of the program will not only affect current UNM students but also those who attend in the distant future.
“You can think of it like a feedback loop. We’re creating teachers, the teachers teach the students, the students grow up and come back to UNM,” Strong said. “So we’re getting the product of what all these teachers are doing.”
Matthew Reisen is a senior reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
