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New dean inducted into the College of Education
By Rachel Manuel
Christine Sorensen, the new dean of the College of Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, calls her new position her "serendipitous career path." Sorensen, who had been the dean at Northern Illinois University's College of Education since 2001, was inducted into the college on August 10. She says, "I see things open up and I always say, 'If it's meant to be, everything will work.'" She adds, "I wasn't really looking to go anywhere, but how many times do you get an opportunity to work in Hawaii?
"What happens around us is important to consider as we review our programs and determine ways to meet the challenges of the future," she said in a speech to the college before the fall semester's start. Part of her plans for the college involves being "creative," where the word creative stands for things she believes needs attention:
- C is for continuous improvement, which is using data as a mechanism for making decisions. It is always looking for ways the college can do things even better than it does.
- R is for resources. She says, "We are in a time period in higher education where you can't really depend on the state anymore to give you all of the resources you need and to do the things you would like to do." She adds that advocating for the college’s needs in a collaborative spirit, balancing individual needs with the needs of the greater whole, is important.
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Christine Sorensen is the new dean at the College of Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Sorensen, who had been a dean at Norther Illinois University since 2001, takes over the position previously held by Randy Hitz. |
- E is for environments for learning. She says some facilities within the college are not conducive to learning and need replacing. A colleague had asked her, "How can we expect to prepare teachers for the next century in facilities that were designed for the last century?"
- A is for alliances and partnerships between the schools, community organizations and colleagues at other colleges. "It means being cognizant of international needs and developing alliances that promote education across the spectrum and around the globe."
- T is for technology, which she says also includes thinking about how it has impacted students who are coming to Hawaii, what differences the college sees in its students and how it can best serve them.
- I is for innovation, which involves rethinking what you do and looking at different ways of doing work and meeting new needs.
- V is for vision. "Our internal vision must be consistent in order for us to convey to our external audiences who we are and what we believe is most important....If no one knows about what we are doing, it does little to help us move to new levels."
- E is for embracing diversity. She says that while diversity is one of the college's strengths, "That doesn't mean we can sit back here and say 'Oh, we're good. We don't need to do anything else.'" Sorensen says there are many aspects to diversity that need examining so that the college may embrace it and use it to enrich what is going on within the college.
Sorensen takes over the position previously held by Randy Hitz. Hitz had accepted the position of the dean of the Graduate School of Education at Portland State University after eight years at Manoa.
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