Clarkson University Professor of Education Catherine Snyder has been named to the Board of Directors for the national accreditation agency: Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP).
The AAQEP was founded in 2017. It is a membership organization and quality assurance agency that provides accreditation services and formative support to all types of educator preparation providers. The AAQEP’s mission is to promote and recognize quality educator preparation that strengthens the education profession’s ability to serve all students, schools, and communities, and to do so equitably.
Snyder is the chair of the Department of Education and the Associate Director of the Institute for STEM Education at Clarkson University’s Capital Region Campus. Dr. Snyder has been with Clarkson for 15 years, after a career teaching at the secondary level. She has taught students ranging from middle school to graduate school in the US and in China.
Dr. Snyder has her bachelor’s degree in economics and Chinese from Smith College; a Master’s in Business Administration and Master of Arts in Teaching from Union College; and a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the State University of New York at Albany. She is also a National Board Certified Teacher, placing her among 1% of the New York State teaching force with this elite designation.
Her research interests include the transformative nature of graduate education and inquiry strategies in secondary teaching. She is the co-author of a book on inquiry methods in the social sciences and has presented work on inquiry and curriculum development nationally and internationally including at universities in China and Russia. Most recently, Dr. Snyder was an invited presenter at Beijing Normal University where she shared her work in inquiry learning.
Snyder’s focus is on the Master of Arts in Teaching programs, a growing set of programs that annually graduate future-ready middle and high school teachers as well as P-12 ESL teachers. MAT candidates are supported with funding from the Noyce Foundation, the Black Educators Initiative, the My Brother’s Keeper grant, and the Clinically Rich Intensive Teaching Institute. The programs boast a 100% job placement rate with alumni of the MAT program regularly receiving local, state, and national recognition. This includes three Presidential Awards for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching in the past five years.
Snyder will serve on the AAQEP board until 2024.
