Innovative Partnerships

The School of Education takes pride in engaging in innovative partnerships with a variety of organizations. Examples include:

Charter School Partnerships

HOPE (Hmong Open Partnerships in Education) Community Academy and Academia Cesar Chavez School are charter schools sponsored by the University of St. Thomas. These schools provide our teacher candidates with an opportunity to be involved in bilingual and bicultural learning environments.

Collaborative Urban Educator

The school’s CUE program offers licensure programs to prepare professionals from diverse backgrounds for careers in education. This is a state-funded cooperative between Minneapolis, St. Paul and several other school districts.

Interdistrict Downtown School

IDDS is an innovative K-12 school and our neighbor in downtown Minneapolis. This partnership includes clinical experiences, teaching placement, a global education curriculum fair and mathematics curriculum development.

Literacy Training Network

The Literacy Training Network, a state of Minnesota program housed in the School of Education, provides professional development opportunities and resources to Minnesota’s literacy practitioners.

London Education Semester

Trudi Taylor, Ed.D., professor, spearheaded a study abroad program in London for teacher candidates.

Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented

The school hosts the MCGT annual conference that supports gifted and talented children and their families.

Minnesota Educators Learning Technology Initiative

Candace Chou, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Michael Mendez, learning technology specialist, received the Enhancing Education Through Technology Grant, which allows the school to partner with Minnesota Association of Charter Schools (MACS) and vivED to offer a learning technologies certificate free to K-12 educators from the Twin Cities and Duluth.

Minnesota Organization Development Network

The Minnesota OD Network and St. Thomas work together to develop courses, certificates and seminars designed for human resource professionals.

Minnesota Private Colleges

St. Thomas collaborates with four private colleges in Minnesota to offer a leadership in student affairs program, preparing student service personnel for positions in values-based institutions.

Murray Institute

The school is an active collaborator in the Murray Institute, which provides tuition-free degrees to cohorts of Catholic school educators with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

National Association of Secondary School Principals

St. Thomas partners with the NASSP to provide an innovative assessment center, which assists students to assess their competencies for K-12 administrative positions.

School Districts

St. Thomas custom designs degree programs, offered on site in collaboration with school districts throughout the region. Examples include the gifted, creative and talented education program with St. Paul Public Schools and the special education program with the Burnsville School District.

Transportation Safety Administration

John Conbere, Ed.D., department chair, received a grant to assess the implementation of the new conflict management system at selected airports around the nation. Organization development doctoral students had the opportunity to participate in the research by gathering information at airports around the nation.

University of Sioux Falls

In conjunction with the University of Sioux Falls, St. Thomas offers a Doctorate in Leadership in the Sioux Falls area.

University of Wisconsin–River Falls

In conjunction with the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, St. Thomas offers an administrative licensure program for principal licensure in Wisconsin.