History

In 1958, the teacher education program was established in the College of Letters and Sciences, now the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and in 1967 the Master of Arts degree in Education was approved. In 1968, the School of Education was formally founded as its own entity, and two years later the Ph.D. in Education was approved. The school was renamed the Graduate School of Education in 2000, and over the next two decades, a number of centers and programs blossomed, including the school psychology Ph.D. program, which is the only American Psychological Association-accredited doctoral program in Southern California.

In 2017, the undergraduate major was launched, and now includes two education minors, including the UC’s only athletic leadership minor program. In August of 2021, the Graduate School of Education was renamed to the School of Education, or SOE, to reflect the scope of the school’s research, community engagement, and academic programs, specifically the growing undergraduate degree program.

Today, faculty and researchers at SOE provide transformative programs such as Project Moving Forward, the SEARCH Autism Family Center, UCR AP Readiness, Center for Transformative Education, and the Institute for Teachers of Color (ITOC) that benefit K-12 students, families, and educators both regionally, and nationally.