At the annual conference of the Utah Council of Education Deans earlier this month, Dr. Teddi Safman, Assistant Commissioner for Academic Affairs for the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE), was presented with the first-ever 2015 Friend of Education Award. This is due to her leadership and work on teacher preparation, common course articulation across Utah campuses, and Tuning USA over the past two decades.
Dr. Safman has worked as a liaison for the Board of Regents to the Utah Council of Education Deans, which consists of deans of the colleges of education in all universities in Utah and related state personnel, working collaboratively to meet the state’s needs for prepared, licensed school personnel now and into the future.
One of Dr. Safman’s key achievements is helping to ensure the continuation of the T.H. Bell Teaching Incentive Loan (TIL). The TIL is funded by the Utah State Legislature, and is jointly administered by the State Board of Education and the State Board of Regents. TIL recipients are required to pursue an educator preparation program, obtain educator licensing, and then teach in Utah public schools for a period equal to the time they received assistance. For more information and the current application, visit the Utah State Office of Education.
About Dr. Teddi Safman
As the Assistant Commissioner for Academic Affairs with the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE), Dr. Safman has among her responsibilities: the Lumina Foundation-funded Tuning Initiative, the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) Initiative, the Quality Collaboratives (also Lumina funded), the Western Interstate Passport Initiative funded by the Carnegie Corporation, and the Multi-State Collaborative to Advance Learning Outcomes Assessment, a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded initiative. She worked with faculty from 38 academic disciplines in the Faculty Discipline Majors’ Meetings on issues ranging from student persistence and completion to competencies, Essential Learning Outcomes (AAC&U), teaching practices and the Degree Qualification Profile.
Although a musician by former training, Dr. Safman received a Ph.D. in Continuing and Adult Education from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Formerly an associate dean of continuing education at the University of Utah, Dr. Safman held leadership positions in adult and continuing education nationally, regionally, and statewide. She joined USHE in 1993 with a short break to work in accreditation and strategic planning in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Safman currently serves on the Western Academic Leadership Forum executive committee. She teaches two graduate courses: organization and governance in higher education, and dissertation proposal writing at the University of Utah.
