A Message from the Dean: December 2019

Dear SOE Billiken Alums,

This has been a busy fall in the School of Education.  I was thrilled to see many of you on campus earlier this season during Homecoming and Family Weekend.  As we wrap up the semester, I want to share some updates with you.

First, our new Interdisciplinary Center for Autism Services opened this summer and is now serving K-12 students and families by providing comprehensive evaluations of student needs.  The Center also provides graduate students valuable clinical experience as they prepare for their future careers.  Through an interdisciplinary team approach, the Center brings together expertise from psychology, communication sciences and disorders, special education, occupational therapy, physical therapy and social work (applied behavioral analysis) to provide high-quality assessments for families.

We are also very excited about our new and innovative partnership with our neighbors in the St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS). In a collaborative partnership, our School of Education has hired a team of postdoctoral fellows, who are assigned to spend 50% of their time supporting the data analytic needs of the district.

I’m also pleased to share that Scott Spurgeon, Ed.D. (ED ’03), a SLU School of Education alumnus, was named 2020 Missouri Superintendent of the Year at the 2019 MSBA/MASA Annual Conference. Spurgeon currently serves as the Superintendent of Riverview Gardens School District in St. Louis—a position he has held for the past seven years.

Finally, we in the School of Education are excited to continue hosting our Distinguished Education Speaker Series into 2020.  On January 16, we will host Shaun Dougherty, Ed.D., associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University.  And we have an exciting slate of speakers each month throughout the Spring 2020 semester. 

Please reach out to us if you are interested in learning more about our programs or activities; more importantly, please let us know if there are ways we can support you better or communicate with you more effectively. Happy Holidays, and I hope to see you in 2020!

Best wishes,
Gary W. Ritter, Ph.D.
Dean, School of Education