| General College Information
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the largest college at NIU in size of faculty, number of students and number of programs of study. It prepares entry-level professional educators in the humanities, sciences and social sciences, and advanced-level school psychologist personnel. The college also has an external advisory board consisting of school administrators who help in the development of programs and initiatives to aid both in-service and pre-service teachers. |
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Collaboration with Secondary
Schools The college has formed informal partnerships with several districts for the purpose of providing individuatlized instruction to at-risk students at both the high school and middle school levels through our Teacher Assistance Program. Our candidates in ILAS 301, our second clinical course, serve as teacher assistants -- working with individual students and small groups of students, assisting with classroom instruction, performing administrative duties such as grading and taking attendance, tutoring students outside of class, and serving as a reference persons for the students, among other possible responsibilities. The schools benefit by having skilled and motivated NIU-CLAS teaching candidates assisting their teachers and students, and our teaching candidates benefit by getting significant hands-on experience and working with diverse student populations. Project
REAL, the Rockford Education Alliance, is a partnership between
Northern Illinois University, Rock Valley College, and Rockford School
District 205 that focuses on dramatically improving student performance
and enhancing the quality of educators. Funding for the partnership
comes from a $5 million, 5-year Teacher Quality Enhancement award by
the U.S. Department of Education. The Rockford schools partnering
with the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences are Jefferson High
School and Rockford Envrironmental Science Adacemy (RESA). The college also provides continued professional development opportunities for many of the area schools through grants and other workshops for secondary school teachers. One such program is the Lincoln Digitalization Project. |
Certification Statistics and
Information
In 2003-04, of the 830 teachers NIU prepared with initial certificates 150 were prepared in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. This year (2005-06), our college will certify close to 200 new teaching candidates. The college has eight initial certification programs. Course work in the content area, as well as clinical experiences and student teaching, are offered in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In addition to major discipline and clinical course work, candidates complete professional education course work offered in the College of Education.
Admission Criteria
Students in all of the programs are required to earn at least a
bachelor's degree in their subject area from NIU or show proof of
completion of a degree from an accredited institution. Each
content-area program determines admission criteria that must be met by
candidates seeking initial certification. Criteria for admission
may include:
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