New Early Childhood Education Major at UMD
Associate Professor Jodie Riek serves as the Paul & Mary Ann Schmidt Endowed Professorship in Early Childhood Development. Photo Credit: UMD Faculty & Staff Directory
Updated 9/17 1:35pm (see bottom)
The University of Minnesota-Duluth gained two new programs for students to study, effective this semester. One of these programs is an Early Childhood Education Bachelor of Applied Science.
“This particular major allows you to teach from birth to third grade,” Associate Professor Jodie Riek said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s only 67 credits total for the major, so there’s a lot of wiggle room if you want to switch majors and still add electives.”
Riek serves as the Paul and Maryanne Schmidt Endowed Chair of Early Childhood Development and notes that this is a unique opportunity to the surrounding northern communities.
The goal of this new major is to meet a need — the need for more teachers that can aid our youth in critical development stages of life. UMD wants to give this opportunity to as many students as they can.
“We have a shortage of qualified early education teachers, and there are not enough people going into the field,” Riek said. “This program is specifically designed to support people already in the field and traditional students. Classes for this major start at 3pm at the earliest this semester.”
Once admitted to the program, students will have a field placement every semester until they start student teaching. This will allow students to be more hands-on with a small faculty and tight-knit community.
“Class sizes at this stage are 10-15 students per class,” Riek said. “It’s very intimate; we get to know each other very well. Students sit in our suites, have a cup of coffee and chat amongst each other. They will be in every class together, so it has become quite the community.”
There are three core Early Education faculty: Dr. Fahana Frans, Dr. Ariri Onchwari and Riek herself. All three are committed towards making this a flexible, supportive environment for students wanting to enter into a short-staffed field.
“We're going to have folks coming and chatting about how to work with our Indigenous communities more effectively,” Riek said. “We want to teach our students how to be advocates, activists and to have a sense of agency.”
Riek teaches a course called Early Childhood Education Leadership Advocacy and Management. In this course, guest speakers come in to teach students how to talk to legislators and make a difference in their field.
“We have new legislation where Early Childhood classrooms in elementary settings must still be taught by Early Childhood trained teachers,” Riek said. “In the past, you could be elementary trained and still teach those classes. That is not the case anymore, so we don’t have enough people to staff them.”
This program has been years in the making — it took Riek two and a half years to write the program and it took awhile to accredit. Despite the hardships of getting the program outside of paper and into the classroom, Riek believes this high-quality program will uplift and upskill those invested in childhood education. It is a much needed step towards filling in vital teacher roles across Minnesota.
This article was updated to correct a incorrect information in a quote. The Bark is dedicated to provide the most correct information possible and will correct information when notified. If there is information or if you would like to read The Bark’s code of ethics please email barkumd@d.umn.edu