The College of Education at the University of South Alabama will celebrate the University’s 50 years of teaching, research and service during its Founders Day Education Summit to be held from 8:30 a.m.-noon, Wednesday, Feb. 20 at the USA Mitchell Center Arena.

The registration fee for the entire program is $35 for education leaders, business/industry leaders, human resource managers, government and civic leaders. USA students, faculty and staff are invited to attend the morning program free of charge with University identification.

This year’s Summit will address the role of the community, business, industry, K-12, and post-secondary education’s accomplishments and challenges around graduating Mobile County Public School students with 21st century workforce readiness. The presenters of this program are the Mobile Area Education Foundation and The Mobile County Public School System. The USA College of Education’s Founders Day is sponsored by Regions Bank.

This event will feature Dr. Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York. She will give the keynote address at 11 a.m. With more than 467,000 students, SUNY is the nation’s largest comprehensive system of higher education. Zimpher is active in numerous state and national education organizations and is a leader in the areas of teacher preparation, urban education and university-community engagement. As co-founder of Strive, a community-based cradle-to-career collaborative, Zimpher has been instrumental in creating a national network of innovative systemic partnerships that holistically address challenges across the education pipeline.

Zimpher earned a bachelor’s degree in English education and speech, a master’s degree in English literature, and a Ph.D. in teacher education and higher education administration, all from The Ohio State University.

Zimpher currently serves as chair of the Board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences and of CEOs for Cities. She also served as chair of the National Coalition of Urban Serving Universities. She also recently co-chaired The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education’s Blue-Ribbon panel on “Transforming Teacher Preparation.”

She previously served as president of the University of Cincinnati, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and executive dean of the Professional Colleges and dean of the College of Education at The Ohio State University.

Those who wish to attend the summit, please register by calling Marian Zambrano at (251) 460-2604, or e-mail mzambrano@southalabama.edu.

About the USA College of Education

The USA College of Education is one of nine colleges and schools at the University of South Alabama and has more than 1800 graduate and undergraduate students. The college has awarded more than 17,800 degrees, with 85 percent of the professionals employed by public schools in the Mobile and Baldwin counties public schools, holding at least one degree or certificate from USA.