An Eye on the Future

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For students, what happens at Pace may be second only to what comes after college. Carrieann Sipos, a clinical assistant professor at Pace’s School of Education, understands this, too.

Whenever Sipos needed to fill an opening at the Ossining school district, in Westchester County, where she worked for 34 years before becoming a full-time professor, she’d make two piles of resumes on her desk. The first included applicants with degrees from Columbia University, Bank Street College of Education, and Pace.

The second pile? Everyone else.

“Pace students were always among the best hires we made,” said Sipos. “Anyone graduating from the School of Education was incredibly well prepared.”

As a new full-time faculty member, it’s now her job to ensure that Pace’s students remain at the top of the stack.

“My students are ambitious and want to make a difference; I see a lot of my younger self in them.”

“My students are ambitious and want to make a difference; I see a lot of my younger self in them,” said Sipos. “But the teachers I train will be up against very different challenges than what I faced. Take diversity. Ossining, when I began teaching, looked very different from the Ossining of today.”

Sipos tells her students that to thrive as a modern educator, they must become “equity warriors,” committed to embracing diversity in all its forms. She emphasizes the importance of community, student-centered learning, and equity in education.

“To really know what a child needs in a highly diverse classroom, teachers must have a deep relationship with their students,” she said. “It’s that sense of care I hope to instill in my students at Pace.”