April 14, 2006 :: No. 209

Claire C. Cavallaro, chief of staff and principal adviser to Cal State Northridge President Jolene Koester, has been named dean of Cal State Fullerton's College of Education.

The appointment by CSUF President Milton A. Gordon is effective July 10 and concludes a nationwide search.

Cavallaro will succeed Ashley L. Bishop, who has been serving as acting dean since the college was established in 2004. Bishop, who was not a candidate for the permanent position, will return to the Reading Department.

"Dr. Cavallaro's impressive record of administrative experience gives us great confidence in her abilities as a manager and leader," Gordon said. "Thanks to the work done by Dr. Bishop during the college's formative stage, she can build upon the infrastructure that has been created. We are indebted to Dr. Bishop for his leadership in launching the college."

As the chief of staff to the CSU Northridge president since 2003, Cavallaro is a member of Koester's cabinet and works with senior staff on such issues as enrollment management, accountability, accreditation, the university budget and fundraising. She coordinates the cabinet's ongoing strategic planning efforts, serves as Koester's liaison to internal and external constituents and works closely with faculty leaders.

Before joining the president's office at Northridge, Cavallaro was chair of the Department of Special Education at that campus for five years. She joined the faculty there in 1982. In those roles, Cavallaro initiated strategic planning and provided leadership for the reviews conducted by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. She was involved in curriculum development, including the education specialist credentials in four specialization areas, and directed numerous externally funded projects.

She earned her Ph.D. in special education at George Peabody College for Teachers at Vanderbilt University.

"I'm delighted to be joining the College of Education at Cal State Fullerton," said Cavallaro, founder and past president of the Community Honoring Inclusive Model Education (CHIME) Institute for Children with Special Needs, a nonprofit organization that provides demonstration, training and research sites for teacher preparation programs. "The college is well-known for the quality of its academic programs, its faculty and its service to the community, and I'm looking forward to being a part of it and helping to take it to the next level of excellence."

The CHIME Institute, housed at CSUN, operates an early childhood program and two acclaimed charter schools where children with a wide range of disabilities are educated together with children who are typically developing or gifted and talented. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Education recognized CHIME as a national model for full inclusion of students with disabilities and for providing a blueprint for local schools across the country.

Cavallaro is the author of numerous publications on teacher education and inclusion, including the book she co-authored, "Preschool Inclusion" (1999).

"Over the last 10 years, education has been among our fastest-growing academic programs, and Dr. Cavallaro has the combination of strengths that perfectly fit our desired profile for a new dean for the College of Education," said Ephraim Smith, vice president for academic affairs.

CSUF's College of Education is home to the university's teacher credential programs, which serves about 2,300 students. The college has about 200 faculty members who teach some 500 courses. It includes the departments of Educational Leadership, Elementary and Bilingual Education, Reading, Secondary Education and Special Education. An online master's degree program in instructional design and technology and a doctoral program in education, which will be introduced in 2007, also are part of the college.

Ruth Yopp-Edwards, professor of elementary and bilingual education and acting chair of the Reading Department, and Thomas Klammer, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, co-chaired the search committee that recommended Caballero's appointment.

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