Not Sure If This Is Transparent Or If There Are Lines To Read Between

 I received this letter today:

Dear Resident Teachers,

We wanted to make you aware that next week, UC Davis School of Education faculty will be voting on a proposal to suspend admissions to our Teacher Education program in order to
undertake an extensive program update and redesign. Just to be clear, this is not a closure of
our program. Rather, it is an important investment in our program’s future and an affirmation of our mission to eliminate inequities in education. As a school of education, we feel a great responsibility to lean into current times and re-imagine how we can best be responsive to our field and prepare future generations of teachers and educational leaders.

If this proposal moves forward and is approved by the UC Davis Dean of Graduate Studies,
we will suspend admissions to our program beginning Fall 2021 for a period of one or more
years while we engage in the redesign process. This will give our faculty the time needed to
fully examine and reimagine the program.

Our mission of addressing educational inequities will not change. Among our priorities will
be better integrating our innovative research into our curriculum, expanding and deepening
the ways we prepare our graduates to address institutional racism, and increasing the use of
digital tools for teaching and learning. All changes in our curriculum will adhere to California Commission on Teacher Credentialing requirements.

If approved, this suspension of admissions will not affect the progress of our currently
enrolled MA students and teaching credential candidates, who will finish their programs on
schedule in 2021 and 2022, respectively. But it will affect whether we have new teaching
credential candidates placed in your classrooms under the guidance of resident teachers for
the 2021-22 school year and possibly beyond.

You are one of our valued partners, and if our proposal is approved, we will seek your input
during our redesign process and will keep you informed about our timeline.

Sincerely,

I can imagine that it would be very helpful to be able to shut an entire program down for a year, to accept no new students, in order to make changes.  To be honest, though, the hinted-at scope of the changes (see 1st paragraph above) gives me pause.

Update, 10/15/20:  It's not just a hinted-at scope:

University of California, Davis, administrators are considering suspending the teacher education master’s degree and credential program beginning in fall 2021, allowing the university to redesign it and prepare it for a stronger social justice lens.

Update, 10/19/20:  Not so fast:

University of California, Davis administrators on Friday announced that after listening to faculty, staff and community input, they will slow down their process to suspend and redesign their teacher education program.

Earlier in the week, administrators announced they were considering suspending the teacher education master’s degree and credential program beginning in fall 2021, allowing the university to redesign it and prepare it for a stronger social justice lens.

But the teacher education faculty, and the surrounding school districts that benefit from the partnership, responded sharply with a petition and a protest. Those who opposed the suspension said they support the changes to the program, but pausing it will hurt schools and the community.  

“Instead, we will engage in a deliberative and collaborative process for deciding if admissions need to be suspended during the redesign process, or if there are satisfactory alternative approaches,” she said in a statement.