Itâs an indelible image from Susan Fuhrmanâs 12-year run at the helm of ¶¶Òőapp: The president in glittering evening dress on the stage of , smiling from ear to ear as she danced with cast members of a musical revue depicting TCâs history.
She has never been known as a spotlight-grabber, but that moment â from a night that capped the Collegeâs year-long celebration of its 125th anniversary and raised the curtain on its historic Campaign â showed Fuhrman in her element. TCâs 10th president arrived in Fall 2006 with a reputation as a convener. As an alumna from the time of , , Maxine Greene and , she also vowed that TC would live up to the legacy of its many great innovative thinkers â a theme she formalized during the 125th anniversary year as âcelebrating a tradition for tomorrow.â And on that night, with Tony Bennett, Mario Cuomo and Dr. Ruth heading the guest list and a cast of students that included the great-great granddaughter of , she was delivering as advertised.
âSusan has an amazing ability to create and empower extraordinarily productive and innovaÂtive new combinations of people,â says , Chair of TCâs Board of Trustees â among them the Board itself, to which she has recruited some 20 new members, including leaders in finance, philanthropy and higher and K-12 education; her own senior leadership team, whose key players have stayed for her entire run as president; and some 70 new tenure-track professors.
âThese faculty hires will be paying dividends for decades to come, and, through their students, for far longer,â Rueckert says.
A CULTURE OF INNOVATION
TC Today Gala
Even before arriving at TC, Fuhrman said she wanted the College to âengage in much more holistic, concerted, comprehensive effortsâ to address complex societal problems. To that end, she commisÂsioned a series of external reviews of TCâs academic departments and launched an ongoing series of âDoÂmain Dinnersâ themed to âBig Ideasâ with potential for greater faculty collaboration. She has explicitly sought to establish a culture of innovation, proclaimÂing annual themes such as âthe year of research.â TC has seen a 40 percent increase in outgoing proposals for external funded research, and sponsored program expenditures have increased by 40 percent to over $50 million annually. Reflecting her passionate belief that teaching should be as much a science as an art, the College has led in the explosion of new discoveries about how people learn, with work that has included:
Research demonstrating that toddlers and preschoolers perform âeveryday math,â and merit more intensive teaching.
Studies correlating poverty with less robust brain development in young children.
Findings that while younger students learn to read, older ones read to learn, using different skills to mine âcontent knowledgeâ in subjects such as history, science and social studies.
New insights about the importance of childrenâs ability to emotionally âself-regulateâ to learn, and how parents shape that ability.
The launch of the , which positions teachers as on-the-ground experts in mainstreaming children with learning disabilities.
The creation of a â the measurement, collection, analysis and reÂporting of data about learners and their contexts, to optimize learning and the environments in which it occurs. As President of the , Fuhrman also convened discussions to create common standards in this emerging field and protect student privacy.
LINKING PAST AND PRESENT (clockwise from top) Launching the Tisch Food Center with (from left) TC Trustees Jack Hyland, Cory Booker, Laurie Tisch and others; TC Day; with Donna Shalala.
In 2011, TC also created a new , bringing together top policy scholars in early childhood education, community college research, school choice, school finance and desegregation. That effort complemented the launch of the Phyllis L. Kossoff Lecture in Education & Policy, which has brought top speakers to campus, including then-U.S. Secretary of Education ; current New York State Education Commissioner ; several New York City public schools chancellors; and, during the past three presidential elections, the education advisors of major party candidates. Fuhrman, herself a leading education policy scholar, says these efforts, coupled with the opening of TCâs , have established the College as, âquite literally, the nationâs premier address for education policy debate.â
Also on Fuhrmanâs watch, the College has launched such cross-disciplinary hubs as the ; the ; the ; and most recently, the , which studies failure. TC also has introÂduced degree programs in nursing education, diaÂbetes education and care, spirituality and psychology, dance education and creative technologies, and deÂveloped continuing education programs in financial literacy, teaching for diverse classrooms and the use of education technology in K-12 classrooms. And the Collegeâs psychology professors have united to hold an annual symposium and launch a new Institute for Psychological Science and Practice.
âOur website no longer says weâre simply a school of education, but also one of health and psychology,â the late TC Board Co-Chair said last summer. âWeâre actively taking advantage of our size â the fact that weâre four to five times bigger than the next biggest school of education â and our history of innovation, to pull from all fields when we need to.â
Building Teams
Bill Rueckert
âSusan has an amazing ability to create and empower extraordinarily productive and innovative new combinations of people,â says Bill Rueckert, TCâs Board Chair â including the Board, to which sheâs recruited 20 new members; her senior leadership team, which has stayed together throughout her presidency; and some 70 new faculty members, who will pay dividends âfor decades to come.â
BEYOND TCâS WALLS
The Fuhrman era at TC has also been marked by extensive collaboration. In 2007, the College established a new, which brought TCâs activities in New York City schools and neighborhoods under a single umbrella. With the cityâs Department of Education, OSCP led creation of the, a pre-K-8 school in West Harlem since hailed as a national model of univerÂsity-public school partnership. (Another indelible Fuhrman moment: the president gleefully helping two first-graders wield an over-sized pair of scissors at the Fall 2012 ribbon cutting ceremony for the schoolâs permanent home.) TC faculty designed the schoolâs enriched curriculum in math and techÂnology, an early childhood education program that ensures seamless transition to formal schooling, a social and emotional development curriculum, and a developmentally structured music program with movement, orchestra, choir and composition.
With Board Chair Bill Rueckert, Professor Susan Recchia and TCâs Rita Gold Center kids
TCCS, in turn, anchors, a network of northern Manhattan public schools that TC supÂports. TC students collectively devote thousands of hours to REACH schools as teaching assistants and volunteers.
CONNECTING WITH YOUNG AND OLD (clockwise from left) With psycholoÂgist Edmund Gordon; launching TCâs school; supporting all fields.
Another hub, the, has worked with to create partnerships in Jordan, where TC helped set up the ; Singapore, whose National Institute of Education teamed with the College on a Master of Arts program in Leadership & Education Change; China, where TC has created partnerships in the fine arts and music; and Brazil, where the is funding Brazilian Student Fellows and Visiting Scholars at TC and research led by professors , , and the . A new partnership in teacher preparation with Kingâs College London, forged by Vice Dean A. Lin GoodÂwin, is anchored by Souto-Manning, an authority on cultural relevance in curriculum, and Kingâs Collegeâs , an authority on transforming teacher education.
THE PAST AS PROLOGUE
Perhaps Fuhrmanâs ultimate strength has been her ability to ground change in TCâs history and longstanding values. During its 125th anniversary year, the College ran bus shelter ads and street banÂners featuring its great minds from different eras, drawing connections to its present-day work. The year concluded with a gala event at Harlemâs legendÂary at which Fuhrman announced the public kick-off of , the largest campaign ever conducted by a graduate school of education. And this past fall, in her State of the College address, she said TCâs legacy and chalÂlenge is âto promote our social justice mission in such a way that education becomes the solution.â
âSusan deeply understands Grace Dodgeâs origÂinal vision for the College and has remained true to it,â says Rueckert, Dodgeâs great-nephew, who heads the . âShe truly believes that education is the key to a better life for people in less fortunate circumstances. My family and Foundation have never been more excited and engaged with TC than during the past decade.â
The most significant example of Fuhrman leveraging collaboration is the Campaign, which this past fall surpassed its original target and as of May 15th, 2018 had raised $330 million. As a result, the College has increased its traditional strengths, such as teacher education, education policy, school leadership, and counseling and clinical psychology, while leading in newer fields such as education technology, digital learning, data mining, neurosciÂence, health care management, culturally relevant pedagogy and spirituality.
The Campaign has also raised nearly $100 million in support for students, creating more than 160 new scholarships as TC has doubled its spending on student aid; funded major upgrades to the physical plant, including the new Smith LearnÂing Theater and a suite of smart classrooms; and significantly broadened TCâs donor base, re-enerÂgizing its 90,000 alumni worldwide.
âThe Campaign is a huge accomplishment that owes directly to Susanâs presence,â says Rueckert. âWe couldnât have attracted so many generous, savÂvy donors without Susan leading the charge. Donors get motivated by the person at the helm.â
Strength in Breadth
Jack Hyland
âOur website no longer says weâre simply a school of education, but also one of health and psychology,â the late TC Board Co-Chair Jack Hyland said last summer. âWeâre actively taking advantage of our size and our history of innovation.â Ultimately, TCâs strength comes from being able to âpull from all fields when we need to.â
CONTINUING IMPACT
Clearly Fuhrmanâs legacy is secure, amply reinforced by TCâs glowing re-accreditation by the Middle States Council in Higher Education in 2016. But her Apollo Theater moment also reflected another of her hallmarks: endings that beget new beginnings. This past fall, after announcing that she would be stepping down in June, Fuhrman laid out four new initiatives to position TC for âemiÂnence and leadership well into this century.â
Convocation
First is reaching the Campaignâs target for student scholarships and fellowships.
Third is , an effort to secure TCâs leadership in the booming education technology market. The College, which held a student innovaÂtion contest in December, is working to ensure that education technology draws on solid research to actually improve teaching and learning.
STANDING ON CEREMONY (clockwise from top) actress Goldie Hawn; U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, alumna Phyllis Kossoff; (from left) donor David OâConnor, TC faculty Dinelia Rosa and George Bonanno.
And finally, confirming a promise she made in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, FuhrÂman announced âa world-class, that reinvents and rejuvenates civics in our schools as a catalyst for informed, responsible citizenship in our democracy.â
âNo other initiative could be more in line with the history and mission of ¶¶Òőapp,â she said. âTo quote John Dewey, âApart from the thought of particiÂpation in social life, the school has no end or aim.â Our great hope is that the striving for social justice, the spirit of civic camaraderie, and the commitment to helping others that flows through TC will spread both outward to schools and communities everywhere, and forward for generations and generations.â
That is a legacy we can all be proud of.
Honor Her Legacy
The Susan H. Furhman Endowed Scholarship supports students who embrace a multi-disciplin-ary approach in their work, reflecting President Fuhrman's conviction that integrating multiple academic perspectives fosters the creativity, innovation, and collaboration needed to solve many of societyâs most complex problems.
TC leadership created this scholarship to help fulfill one of PresÂident Fuhrmanâs most important priorities of her twelve year tenure: building TCâs scholarship pool so it can compete for future leaders in education, health, and psychology and help lessen the burden of debt students acquire upon graduation. To make a gift, please visit
