FEATURE
Connie L. Lurie College of Education
By Julia Halprin Jackson
Explore experiential learning stories
The Connie L. Lurie College of Education is committed to preparing educators, including teachers, administrators, counselors and service providers, who will ensure equity and excellence for all students in a culturally diverse, technologically complex global community. See how faculty, staff, students and alumni collaborate through hands-on teaching and learning experiences.
CHAD Lab Preschool teaching assistants engage kids in fun activities. Photo by Robert C. Bain.
Unlocking Wonder
It’s critical for aspiring early childhood educators to gain experience working with young children. At San José State, Spartans can earn credit toward their degrees while learning from faculty, their peers and children alike.
Playful Pioneers
Child and Adolescent Development majors at San José State gain hands-on experience with community organizations through a unique practicum course.
Within a month of graduating from San José State, Kalina Chan, ’21 Child and Adolescent Development, landed a full-time job as a middle school program manager for Breakthrough Silicon Valley, a nonprofit committed to cultivating first-generation college students starting in seventh grade. This was no easy feat, considering that the Omnicron variant of COVID-19 forced strict regulations on remote work in early 2022. And yet Chan had just completed CHAD 158, a culminating practicum course that pairs students with community organizations that support children and families, and she felt ready.
Illustration by Jennifer Guo, '24 Animation/Illustration.
Student practicum placement map. Photo by Robert C. Bain.
Counselors: The Champions of Well-Being
The Counselor Education graduate program at San José State offers Spartans the chance to experience the transformational impact of working as interns and fieldwork students with local school districts, nonprofits and community colleges.
Amy Gutierrez still remembers the name of her high school guidance counselor — and for good reason. As a senior in high school in northern Michigan and the eldest of four children, Gutierrez hadn’t planned on attending college. It wasn’t until her counselor pointed out that she met the qualifications for a scholarship to attend a nearby university — and drove her the three and a half hours so she could take an entrance exam — that she could picture a life beyond her rural community.
Finding and Creating Freedom in the Classroom and Beyond
Connie L. Lurie College of Education’s master’s program in educational leadership offers Spartan educators opportunities to transform education from the ground up.
Before she became an assistant professor of educational leadership at San José State’s Connie L. Lurie College of Education, even before she took the reins as director of the Lurie College’s master’s degree program in educational leadership, Veneice Guillory-Lacy served as a high school principal in Idaho — her district’s first ever Black and Indigenous woman administrator. As a career educator with several years’ teaching high school under her belt, Guillory-Lacy hoped to address the inequities that she’d seen students and teachers face.
Veneice Guillory-Lacy, front right in brown jacket, with a MELS cohort in downtown San José. Left to right: Griselda Avila, '22 MA Educational Leadership; Kori Kurbiel, '22 MA Educational Leadership; Mindy Trisko, '22 MA Educational Leadership; Clarissa Johnston, '22 MA Educational Leadership; Karen Orozco, '12 Child and Adolescent Development, '22 MA Educational Leadership; Cody Chau, '22 MA Educational Leadership. Photo courtesy of Veneice Guillory-Lacy.
Top photo: Robert C. Bain.
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