Robert Floden: Shaping the future

Robert Floden is dean of MSU's renowned College of Education and a university distinguished professor. The following is repurposed from WKAR: Public Media from Michigan State University. Floden highlights some of the strengths of the College of Education.

It's the people who work there. It's the faculty and the reputation. They get out and about and meet with other colleagues around the world, around the country, around Michigan. Whenever they do, people are impressed with the quality of the people here.

It's our graduates who go out and the people who finish their Ph.D.s who go out and get jobs at other universities. They get jobs in school districts. They get jobs in state government. They get jobs in the research shops.

Our mission is to prepare a range of different people who work in education and in some of the health professions. A lot of our people will work in the education sector, from preschool up through university.

The Department of Kinesiology prepares undergraduates who are going to work in a variety of health-related professions like occupational therapy, training and physical therapy.

We have a close connection with our Michigan Department of Education. We have a group called EPIC - the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative - that's working together with the Michigan Department of Education to become the go-to group for evaluating the impact of education policies in Michigan.

It's a place that's outstanding in the quality of the work that it does and the connections it makes between scholarship, policy and practice in education and health.

For the full interview, visit WKAR.org.