The College of Education’s (COE) Milestones document is a chronology or timeline of the COE’s people and programs from 1944 to the present time. It is the culmination of a collective vision of many people and groups to preserve and celebrate the COE’s history.
Beginning in 1999, COE Dean Phyllis Edmundson led the School’s first history preservation project by forming the History Task Force—a group of retired and current faculty and staff. She charged this Task Force to guide the COE in the preserving, communicating, and celebrating its history. The Task Force’s founding members included Alma Bingham, Steve Brannan, Ulrich (Rick) Hardt (Chair), Maxine Thomas, and Barbara Wiegele. After the Task Force concluded its initial work, the COE faculty under the leadership of Interim Dean Carol Mack approved the formation of the COE History Preservation and Celebration Committee with six voting members (i.e., a combination of current and retired COE faculty or staff) as a COE standing committee on November 21, 2005.
One of the major accomplishments of the COE History Preservation and Celebration Committee was the completion and display of the Dean’s Gallery—portraits of the COE Dean’s along with their notable achievements in 2000. The COE has updated and continued to display the Dean’s Gallery in the Dean’s Conference Room and on the COE website.
Another remarkable undertaking of the COE History Preservation and Celebration Committee was the COE Milestones projects. The Committee envisioned the COE Milestones as a timeline or chart that listed the history of COE’s programs. From 2006-08, the Committee members gathered school-wide and departmental information from current and retired faculty, staff, and administrators to draft COE and departmental milestones. The Committee encouraged all departments (i.e., Counselor Education, Curriculum and Instruction, Educational Policy, Foundations, and Administrative Studies [later renamed Educational Leadership and Policy], Special Education) to develop departmental milestones. Leading this initiative was Steve Brannan, Committee Co-Chair, who drafted not only a milestones document for the COE’s Special Education Department, but also a COE-wide milestones document.
When the COE History Preservation and Celebration Committee stopped meeting in 2011-12, the goal of preserving the COE history did not die. In summer 2015, Cheryl Livneh, retired Associate Dean for Outreach, agreed to accept the invitation of Dean Randy Hitz and Associate Dean Micki Caskey to serve as the COE Historian. The major task associated with this role included updating the COE Milestones from 2007 to present—a process that entailed (a) gathering information from the departmental milestones documents; (b) organizing the milestones content into major categories (i.e., administrative updates, faculty updates, grant funding, programmatic updates and outreach) by year; (c) developing a set of appendices (i.e., academic professionals and researchers, development, EdD graduates, staff, supervisors, abbreviations) to accompany the milestones; and (d) verifying to the extent possible the accuracy of the milestones. The verification process required review of the PSU Bulletins, PSU Directories, and consultation with COE retired faculty, staff, administrators, as well as PSU leadership. The COE Milestones posted to the COE website is the culmination not only of these recent efforts, but is also the result of the collective energies of the COE Task Force, COE History Preservation and Celebration Committee, and many other people. For the latest iteration, a special thanks to Pati Sluys, retired Chief Financial Officer; Cristine Paschel, Head of Special Collections and University Archivist and her staff; Steve Harmon, Curriculum Coordinator; and Val Katagiri, Editor.
Because the COE Milestones document, like other chronologies, is a human endeavor, it may be incomplete or may contain errors. If you find errors or have revisions to suggest, please send them to Cheryl Livneh at livnehc@pdx.edu. Be sure to include documentation (e.g., Bulletin copy, committee minutes) for the change.
Ideally, the COE Milestones will help the COE to preserve and honor its history.