Director of Teacher Education
School of Education
January 1, 2009
Educator Has Dedicated 22 Years to UCI’s Teacher Preparation Programs
Susan Meyers is Director of Teacher Education and responsible for the multiple and single subject teacher credential programs and the Master of Arts in Teaching program. She came to UCI in 1986 from her home state of Wisconsin where she had been an elementary and secondary reading specialist, a middle and high school English teacher, and a teacher of adult basic education and English at the community college level.
Ms. Meyers holds a B.S. in English and a Master’s Degree in Reading Education from the University of Wisconsin. She commented on her first experiences in California:
I was lucky enough to secure employment as a teacher at Orange Coast and Saddleback Valley Community Colleges, a supervisor of elementary teacher credential candidates at Cal State Fullerton, and a supervisor in UCI’s growing elementary and secondary Intern Teacher Program. I was a real “freeway flyer” for two years. I learned about the three postsecondary systems that were so different from those in Wisconsin, and I had a real geography lesson, too. Because the Intern Program had expanded, I was assigned to supervise K-12 interns in Indio, San Bernadino, Riverside, Temecula, Lake Elsinore, and Norwalk. It was challenging and exciting, but driving out to the desert in a Toyota Tercel with no radio and no air conditioning was interesting, to say the least!
Over the last 22 years, Ms. Meyers also served as Coordinator of the Intern Teacher Program, Coordinator of the Single Subject Student Teacher Program, Coordinator of the Multiple Subject Teacher Program, and instructor for teacher credential courses related to field experiences and student/intern teaching assignments and reading and health education.
Each year Ms. Meyers oversees the preparation of approximately 250 new elementary and secondary teachers through a rigorous, research-based program of course work and field work in regional public school classrooms. Regarding her work, she noted:
While UCI has one of the largest teacher credential programs in the UC system, our faculty pride themselves on implementing a cohort-based model that provides students with personal connections with faculty, supervisors, staff, and mentor teachers. District and school site administrators who employ our new teachers consistently comment on how well prepared they are, and that makes me proud.
In presentations Ms. Meyers makes to recruit new teachers she emphasizes that earning a teaching credential is the first step in what can be a varied and diverse career as an educator:
With a teaching credential in hand, a person can be a K-12 classroom teaching, become an administrator or a curriculum specialist, teach at the community college or university level, or devise a unique path, limited only by one’s motivation and creativity. It’s a wonderful life!