Carrie Zack
A member of the NIU community for 13 years, Carrie Zack exemplifies an abundance of expertise, wisdom and professionalism as the associate director of Educator Licensure and Preparation. In this role, Zack has a wide range of responsibilities including licensure assessment coordination, report writing, supervision and accreditation preparation.
It is abundantly clear from her colleagues’ comments that Zack goes above and beyond to help others and support all licensure programs, aiming to alleviate much of the assessment burden they would otherwise shoulder to ensure their compliance with all state and national reporting mandates. She does this with a compassionate and calm attitude for 37 programs in four separate colleges.
“Data collection and report writing is laborious and time consuming. Carrie shoulders all of her duties and responsibilities with finesse and remarkably I have never once heard her complain!” says Judy Boisen, associate director edTPA.
Zack helped developed a university-wide student teaching evaluation and disposition assessment and conducted research on their validity and reliability. “These assessment tools make it possible to collect valuable data on our teacher candidates which helps to inform programs as they move forward in their quest to make NIU the institution of choice for teacher education,” explains Boisen.
“Carrie is committed to further streamline the reporting of assessment data which will place NIU at the forefront of data-informed decision making for quality licensure programs and teachers,” remarks Educator Licensure and Preparation Associate Vice Provost Jenny Parker.
Zack is a member of American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, American Educational Research Association, and International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development. She serves on various sub-committees within the University Committee on Initial Educator Licensure and the University Committee on Advanced and Non-Teaching Educator Licensure Programs.
Zack was honored with the 2018 Supportive Professional Staff Presidential Award for Excellence. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in educational psychology at NIU.