History
Since its founding in Tempe in 1885 as the Arizona Territorial Normal School, Arizona State University (ASU) has continued to fulfill its original mission of training educators for Arizona's schools. The Office of the Vice President for Education Partnerships began its mission in 2003 in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education as university-school partnership efforts were led out of the Office of the Dean, with initial support in the first three years from internal units and personnel.
In particular the Bureau of Educational Research & Services, with a long-standing connection to the Pre-K-12 education community, served as the foundation upon which to build an augmented and expanded P-12 outreach. Leveraging the resources and infrastructure of the College of Education, university-school partnerships defined its vision, mission and goals to focus partnership collaborations on high-need districts and schools. The beginning framework centers on four pillars: early childhood education; quality teachers; educational leaders; and the relationship between students, families, and schools as community.
The first ALPHA Partnership focused on urban Phoenix schools including the Murphy School District and the Phoenix Union High School District and its feeder schools. The BETA Partnership created collaborative work with the Mesa Unified School District, and GAMMA , the Roosevelt School District. Many plans and much history remain to be written, but the establishment of the Office of the Vice President for Education Partnerships opens the door for a university-wide effort to bring to the P-12 sector the vast array of ASU talent, energy, experience, enthusiasm and resources to build strong partnerships to benefit Arizona's youth.