In the College of Education, we seek to prepare teachers, administrators, and counselors by developing the skills, attitudes, and understanding needed by students to become successful educational professionals and well-educated citizens. The core of our work in preparing educators revolves around the central theme of instilling into our students the desire to be competent, caring, and reflective practitioners. We believe that students, teachers, administrators, and counselors, in order to become truly professional, need to understand their respective subject areas, utilize technology to broaden and enrich instruction, promote tolerance and an appreciation for diversity in all its aspects, and continually strive to learn and utilize educational proficiencies to their highest standards.

In the world of the 21st century, if truly no child is to be left behind, then our nation and our communities will need strong, learned, dedicated, and moral individuals to shoulder the awesome and rewarding tasks of preparing the next generation of Americans to be successful in the world. It is these individuals that the College of Education at Southeast Missouri State University seeks and encourages to become educators at all levels. Becoming a teacher is not an easy task, but it is one of the most important professions that any person can seek and strive to enter. It is a career that has profound impact on our local, regional, and national future, filled with the job of helping others to guard our heritage and have the courage and wisdom to seek out the future.

The programs in the College of Education, using a combination of accredited and earmarked courses taught by excellent faculty and substantial field-work in local schools, prepare teachers at all levels of education to meet successfully those challenges. The programs include early childhood, elementary, exceptional child, middle level, and high school teachers in a wide array of subjects, such as math, science, physical education, foreign language, music and art, and many other fascinating fields. We also help successful teachers become school administrators (principals and superintendents), as well as counselors. We encourage all students at Southeast to come visit us in the College and our departments and learn about becoming one of the individuals who shapes the future!