Dr. Ellen S.
Faith, Ed.D., Associate Professor and Accreditation Coordinator
for the Department of Education, came to CBU in 1998 and provided,
through six years as Chair and three years as Graduate Director,
leadership for the Department of Education through a period
of major expansion, particularly with respect to its graduate
programs. Under her leadership, the Department’s graduate
offerings expanded from the M.Ed. degree created in 1996 to
include the M.A.T. designed specifically for initial teaching
licensure and the M.S. in Educational Leadership for the preparation
of school administrators. This expansion also included the
addition of new faculty and staff positions to the Department
of Education, which is now recognized as a community leader
in the preparation of new teachers. Dr. Faith, whose doctoral
degree was earned at Harvard University’s Graduate School
of Education, also holds the Ed.M. from Harvard, the M.A.
from Vermont College, and the B.A. from Regents College. Her
research interests are currently expressed in her role as
evaluators for two major federal grants to Memphis City Schools
and Shelby County Schools, one that offers professional development
for teachers experiencing the influx of English language learners
into area schools, the other focusing on math, science, and
technology learning and career exploration for high school
girls. She likes to use the case method when teaching, whether
in the initial licensure or the advanced professional development
levels, much as Harvard does in its preparation of education
professionals.
During Dr. Faith’s seven-year career
at CBU, she has won three grants from the Assisi Foundation
of Memphis, the latest one to fund the Department of Education’s
effort to achieve national accreditation through NCATE, as
well as from the University of Notre Dame to initiate the
LANCE program at CBU, a Catholic teacher-service program that
is a partnership with the Diocese of Memphis and from IBM
in partnership with the Memphis City Schools. Dr. Faith is
also the past president of the Memphis Area Teacher Education
Collaborative, an association of teacher educators in the
Memphis area, and was elected president of the Tennessee Association
of Independent and Liberal Arts Colleges of Teacher Education
for the 2004-2005 academic year.
Dr. Faith’s teaching career in higher
education locally includes three years at then-Memphis State
University and two years at LeMoyne-Owen College. Her dissertation
was about the effort to renew LeMoyne-Owen College, including
its teacher education program that had long been a key area
of service to the Memphis African-American community, and
focused on issues of strategy and institutional culture. Dr.
Faith’s previous record of service to higher education
and the K-12 sector includes a role as director of a high
school located within a community college setting as well
as high school teaching experience in English/language arts
and history/social studies.
Dr. Faith is an active member in the parish
community of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, serving
weekly as a sacristan and communion minister. She is a grandmother
of three children between the ages of 2 and 17 and stepmother
of three grown children. Dr. Faith and her husband Mack continue
to find the human environment of the greater Memphis area
a challenge to their sense of mission in education. Dr. Faith
has transformed the well-known saying of St. John Baptist
De LaSalle, patron of teachers and founder of the Christian
Brothers, “The work is yours,” into “The
work is ours,” with respect to the great need of Memphis
and the surrounding locale for excellent teachers and school
leaders.
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