There's a nationwide demand for Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments (TSVIs), especially in rural areas with limited resources. Become part of the solution with Portland State University's unique VIL program—the only one in the Pacific Northwest.

Whether aiming for an add-on endorsement through the Blindness and Low Vision graduate certificate or pursuing a Special Education master’s degree with initial licensure, our program equips you to serve students birth to 21 years old with visual impairments, ensuring they access a quality education.

Program Benefits:

• Learn to assist students with visual impairments to fully access the general education curriculum
• Study coursework needed to apply for licensure in special education with a TSVI Specialization  in visual impairment
• Experience incredible value: Learn from experienced teachers who have scholarly expertise and advanced degrees—and do so in convenient locations and at an accessible price
• Gain practical experience via field placements in local educational agencies or at residential schools for the blind
• Explore multiple ways of educating with small-scope projects across a diverse range students with vision loss, including those with multiple disabilities

Program Specifics

• Participate in part-time, two year master's program for working professionals
• Already have a teaching license? Complete the Blindness and Low Vision graduate certificate for the added endorsement
• Enjoy convenient, hybrid scheduling for working professionals, including face-to-face and online learning environments where students learn individually and in groups
• Benefit from your peers’ knowledge and experience in our unique cohort model

About the Program

PSU is the regional university preparation program for the Pacific and Northwest Consortium for Vision Education (PNWCVE). With a focus on consortium member states Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, Idaho, and Montana, the VIL program prepares TSVIs and leaders in both  rural and urban areas to meet the critical shortage of professionals.

Students admitted to degree completion programs and graduate certificates may apply for and receive financial aid and are eligible for scholarships while fully admitted and enrolled in no fewer than five credits per term. Students falling beneath the five credit/term threshold will not receive financial aid for any terms that a “credit load” falls under five credits. The College of Education offers specific scholarships to students in COE degree programs. Applications open in October annually.

In addition, we recommend checking with your State Department of Education as they often have scholarships available for educators serving low-incidence populations. School districts may also be willing to fund part of your education with a commitment to return to the school district.

Our master’s thesis core offers a unique experience to engage in innovative research with mentorship from faculty.

Professionals who do not require licensure may take individual courses to satisfy a personal development plan with the permission of the instructor. Be aware that by taking individual courses, you will not satisfy program and licensure requirements.

Portland State’s certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) is for students interested in working abroad after graduation. Completion of this program will give you the skills to help meet the changing needs in education throughout the world while immersing yourself in a new culture. Add it to your major or a previous degree, and it's your gateway to international jobs.

The TESL certificate helps you develop skills and knowledge to teach English internationally without the commitment of a two-year master's degree. If you already have a master's degree in another field, completion of this program may qualify you to teach English as a second language in community colleges across the United States.

Our seven-course program combines practical teaching skills with in-depth knowledge about English, language learning, and cross-cultural interactions. The program prepares you to become a more effective and adaptable teacher. This certificate does not license you to teach in public schools.

Students may enroll in the program as undergraduates or as postbaccalaureates.

The OHSU-PSU collaborative School of Public Health is an innovative structure, in which we bring the best of two universities to you. Our design is a product of our innovative spirit and values: we bring that approach to you, working to chart your path into clinical, educational, policy, and direct-service health care.

With five specialized Health Studies concentrations and two minors, we provide you with specialty training and a core foundation in public health that positions you to excel in the career path you seek.

In our Health Administration Services concentration, you will learn the policy, organizational, administrative, and financial foundations for health care systems and health services delivery. Our graduates are ready to enter the workforce in hospital or health provider administration, as project managers, and as patient support and health policy advocates.

We offer:

• Tailored, individualized advising and mentorship
• Expert faculty with extensive research and real-world experience
• Innovative curricula – we bring the community to you through guest speakers, applied learning activities, and a focus on current issues – all focusing on developing solutions to real-world problems
• Experiential learning -we bring you to the community through a mentored internship
• Faculty and career development opportunities from both universities

The OHSU-PSU School of Public Health: A great place to make a world of difference.

Great teachers start at PSU.

The master’s degree in education prepares you to be a part of a new wave of progressive K-12 teachers. As America’s schools become more racially and ethnically diverse, serving students with different cultures, languages, and abilities, our teachers need to adapt. The College of Education will equip you to teach in an inclusive and equitable environment, utilizing the latest technology to help you succeed. You will be a teacher who helps each student succeed on their unique terms.

To become a secondary teacher, you will need to earn a bachelor's degree and complete coursework in the content area you hope to teach. This track prepares you to teach 6th through 12th grade and can be completed over one or two years. The program requires 66 total credit hours including academic work and student teaching. Students will specialize in a specific subject area, learning teaching methodology directly related to the content.

Through the GTEP program you will:

• Earn your master’s degree and Oregon teaching license in one year (perfect for those who can go to school full-time) or two years (works great for those with other work commitments).
• Design, plan, and implement lesson plans that encourage creativity, build community, and make a real impact on your students’ goals and future careers.
• Challenge yourself to help create sustainable equity and inclusion in education.
• Learn from experienced secondary school teachers who have scholarly expertise and advanced degrees—and do so in convenient locations and at an accessible price.

How to Become a Teacher in Oregon

1. Complete a bachelor’s degree from an accredited school.
2. Choose a subject and grade level (Secondary).
3. Complete a teacher preparation program. The program must qualify for a TSPC Oregon Preliminary Teaching License.
4. Complete your student teaching requirements through the GTEP program.
5. Apply for your license through the state, complete your background check, and pass testing requirements.

The Leadership for Sustainability Education (LSE) program specialization leads to a master's degree in Educational Leadership and Policy. This program fosters skills in sustainability education and collaborative, emergent leadership. Learn to envision, design, and implement sustainable solutions in a variety of settings including schools, nonprofit organizations, local governments, and businesses.

Sustainability leadership and education encompass ways to facilitate and teach in ways that are inclusive, collaborative, holistic, and critical of injustice and oppression. In LSE we learn how to work effectively and emergently with others to challenge dominant systems to create just and regenerative communities and ecosystems. We believe this requires a shift in our ways of being and knowing, rooted in a deep acknowledgement of our inherent interconnectedness. This also requires a deep, ethical understanding of living within the limits of the earth’s natural systems, as well as personal and communal shifts in behaviors to create healthy and balanced solutions to the interconnected problems that face our bioregions. Sustainability education and leadership involve shifting to holistic, systemic, ecological, relational, and spiritual ways of teaching and leading.

We believe that sustainability education should be embodied in all of our classes and activities. In LSE, students and instructors take on the roles of both teachers and learners, and we strive to model education that is inclusive, participatory, experiential, thematic, critically questioning, place-based, and transformative.

The LSE program provides opportunities to address real sustainability issues through a theory-to-practice curriculum that includes ongoing community-based learning. You’ll create a network of relationships with your program colleagues and mentors, faculty, and community leaders, and will have the opportunity to apply your learning through numerous individual and group projects.

Working closely with a faculty advisor, LSE students develop a program of study that is tailored to their personal and professional goals. Some examples of ways to focus your study include: garden-based education, non-profit leadership, service-learning, entrepreneurial pursuits, sustainability education in higher education, community or governmental organizations, or school- based endeavors.

About LSE Graduate Program

LSE mission and guiding principles

Mission
LSE prepares graduates for careers as leaders and educators through the study of sustainability leadership and pedagogy that emphasizes interconnectedness, social and ecological justice, relationship-building, and skills for sustainable change.

The following values guide the LSE program: Justice, Interconnectedness, Compassion, Integrity, Community, and Love.

We strive to enact these values by:

• Upholding a strong commitment to inclusion, equity, and social, ecological, and economic justice
• Fostering interbeing and earth-connection
• Developing wise and compassionate leaders
• Empowering collaborative leaders and educators
• Facilitating holistic, participatory, inclusive, and transformative learning
• Integrating embodied and spiritual learning
• Centering indigenous and intuitive knowledge
• Practicing whole systems design
• Facilitating and promoting applied, experiential, and community-based learning
• Integrating theory, research, and practice
• Developing reflective practitioners and critical thinkers with strong communication skills
• Honoring multiple and non-dominant perspectives including multicultural, interdisciplinary, intergenerational, indigenous, and local perspectives
• Fostering critical hope and resiliency through networks and relationships

What’s unique about the Leadership for Sustainability Education program? In LSE you will:

• Be part of the movement to address climate change and systemic injustice
• Engage in community-based learning in every course
• Discover hands-on learning opportunities in leadership, garden-based education, and sustainable food systems at our 3-acre Learning Gardens Laboratory
• Build strong connections with peers in your learning community and cohort
• Connect to an ever growing community of committed alumni
• Explore interconnectedness, social and ecological justice, relationship-building, and skills for sustainable change
• Tailor this flexible academic program to meet your personal and professional goals

What kind of leader do you want to be?

As a student in the program, your learning will focus on the following 4 LSE Key Learning Areas, designed for you to:

• Gain a stronger awareness of yourself, including your own ecological identity and inherent inter-relatedness with the earth; articulate who you are and what is important to you as an educator and leader.
• Cultivate an understanding of sustainability issues as interconnected, holistic, and relational; develop stronger systems thinking; and elevate marginalized and under-heard perspectives
• Create strategies for working with diverse groups to create change; understand how power, privilege and (in)justice impact relationships; develop networks and partnerships
• Develop a toolkit for enacting sustainable change, including skills for whole system design and analysis, participatory facilitation, and collaborative leadership.

Professionals in Student Affairs assist students in two and four-year colleges with their initial academic entry experiences (admissions and financial aid), in meeting their academic goals (advising and new student orientation), in gaining leadership experiences (residence life, athletics, student governance, community engagement), and in defining their future career path (career counseling). The Student Affairs in Higher Education Graduate Certificate is designed for professionals from any work background. If you want to advocate for students and support them through personal, academic, and professional growth, this certificate program will provide you with the knowledge, skills, and experiences for career success.

The OHSU-PSU School of Public Health is an innovative structure, in which we bring the best of two universities to you. Our design is a product of our innovative spirit and values: we bring that approach to you, working to chart your path into clinical, educational, policy, and direct-service health careers.

In the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science in Applied Health and Fitness, you will explore and apply the most current research and science in the field of exercise, physical activity, and health. With three specialized focus areas (Fitness and Exercise, Health Coaching, and Fitness for Special Populations), we provide you with a core foundation in public health and specialized skills in exercise science that positions you to excel in the career path you seek.

We offer:

• Tailored, individualized advising and mentorship
• Expert faculty with extensive research and real-world experience
• Innovative curricula – we bring the community to you through guest speakers, applied learning activities, and a focus on current issues – all focusing on developing solutions to real-world problems
• Experiential learning -we bring you to the community through a mentored internship
• Faculty and career development opportunities from both universities

The OHSU-PSU School of Public Health: A great place to make a world of difference.

Be an empowered educator and personnel trainer! Leading equity-centered educational and workplace change in schools, colleges, business, government agencies, and non-profit organizations requires continued professional development and life-long learning of knowledge and skills. This 18 credit (about one year) program emphasizes a theory-to-practice (praxis) curricular focus of contemporary research, evidence-based practices, and culturally-contextualized expertise and experiences.

• Learn epistemological theories, motivational teaching strategies, and equity-centered practices for facilitating adult learning and professional skill-building
• Understand strategies for designing responsive training programs that integrate individual learning styles, cultural and experiential backgrounds, and organizational goals.
• Apply contemporary learning theory to support teaching, training, and educational programming in formal (traditional classrooms), non-formal (workshops), and alternative (on-line) pedagogical forms including experiential and community-based learning.

Immerse yourself in the creativity, technical knowledge, cultural history, and design experience you will need to succeed in the field of architecture. Our bachelor's degree in Architecture is a four-year pre-professional undergraduate program that prepares students for the two-year Master of Architecture degree or for design positions in architecture firms.

Our students are schooled in the broad tools and skills needed to work in the field, as well as the architect’s ethical responsibility to address critical environmental and social challenges in the urban setting.

The program is structured around a four-year sequence of required, thematic design studios, from freshman drawing classes to senior architectural interventions in the city. These studio experiences form the heart of the architecture degree, with rigorous hands-on instruction in drawing and making skills, design principles, and project-based learning, often in collaboration with community nonprofits and other organizations. Students' design studio coursework is enriched by required and elective lectures and seminars in architectural history, humanities, and tectonics. These seminars introduce, analyze, and discuss the complexities of the cultural and technological influences upon the making of architecture.

Our undergraduate program provides a clear path toward becoming a professional architect. Through our four-year undergraduate program, followed by our two-year Master of Architecture degree (also known as the “4 + 2 model”), you can launch your architecture career and go on to earn your professional license. Even better: our IPAL program allows you to jump ahead of your peers by starting your AXP (internship) credits while you are still an undergraduate.

The Training and Development Graduate Certificate  prepares professionals who teach, train, manage, and/or consult in the area of workforce (employee and volunteer) development.  Students will apply current theory as they plan, create, deliver, and evaluate high quality training programs for their organizations.