David Mandzuk, PhD
Dean, Faculty of Education

Welcome to the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the beginning of a new year!  Our faculty is the only Faculty of Education at a U15, research-intensive university in the province and a leader in teacher education and educational research. Our faculty members conduct research into areas as diverse as: inclusive education, general curriculum and curriculum leadership, teaching English as an additional language, educational administration, language and literacy, and counselling psychology. We offer engaging and state-of-the-art programs, ranging from our two-year, after-degree BEd to the post-baccalaureate, master’s and PhD programs. We are seen as educational leaders in Manitoba, Canada and around the world. We prepare beginning teachers, but we also help advance the practice of teachers already in classrooms, helping them to tackle challenges and opportunities they face every day. Our work is guided by the following five strategic priorities:

• Strengthening teaching, graduate student supervision, and academic program development,
• Fostering research, scholarly work and creative work among faculty and students,
• Indigenizing the curriculum and the Faculty’s physical space,
• Building and sustaining a safe and respectful community, and
• Collaborative engagement and partnerships.

Within these five priority areas, there are a number of initiatives that we are very excited about that I think deserve special mention:

1. We are increasing our financial support for BEd students interested in northern practicum placements;
2. We are increasing the number of undergraduate research awards that we will be supporting for the summer of 2019;
3. We are preparing BEd students for the WestCAST 2019 conference at the University of Calgary;
4. We will soon begin work on our new Indigenous Community Space that will provide a dedicated space for Indigenous teaching and other culturally relevant activities;
5. We are continuing to work with our partners at the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre on PBDE and graduate cohort programming;
6. We are in the initial stages of planning a video conference space to connect us more effectively with educators in the province, across the country and around the world;
7. We are planning to develop a partnership with CELA (Community Engaged Learning Abroad) Belize as part of our focus in Global Indigenous Education;
8. We are refreshing our current strategic plan, and
9. We are working hard to ensure that we have a safe and respectful work and learning environment so that all of our students, faculty and staff feel safe, valued, and respected.

In short, we take pride in the work we do to advance education in Manitoba and we always pleased to collaborate with colleagues and partners in other parts of Canada and around the globe. For more information, please contact my office at: dean.education@umanitoba.ca