Collaboration receives Shirley S. Schwartz Urban Impact Award

The innovative and influential partnership between Cleveland State University and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Campus International School continues to earn national notice. The partnership has been recognized with the 2016 Shirley S. Schwartz Urban Impact Award from the Council of Great City Schools. CSU President Ronald M. Berkman and CMSD Superintendent Eric Gordon accepted the honor on behalf of both organizations at the Council’s annual meeting in Miami October 19. This is the second time in the last five years that CSU and the CMSD have received this honor.

“CSU’s partnership with CMSD is a key driver in the effort to improve educational quality and student success in Cleveland’s schools, while serving as a model for educational collaboration nationwide,” says Ronald M. Berkman, President of Cleveland State. “Campus International School is a central component of this effort and provides a platform for educational innovation and community development while also creating a clearer path to college for Cleveland’s school children.”

The only authorized International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program in the CMSD, Campus International embraces a rigorous curriculum with a focus on global studies and foreign languages. CSU provides a dedicated faculty advisor to assist with curriculum development, student teachers to augment classroom teaching and university resources such as Chinese language instruction through its Confucius Institute. Elementary and secondary students also gain a significant understanding of the benefits of college, creating a clear path for increasing higher education attainment for urban students. Campus International currently houses grades K-7 and will ultimately expand to K-12. The school has also just broken ground on a new state-of-the-art facility on the CSU campus that will open in 2017.

The Shirley S. Schwartz Urban Impact Award recognizes an outstanding partnership between a university and an urban school district that has had a positive and significant impact on student learning and educational outcomes. CSU and CMSD previously won the award in 2011 for their collaboration surrounding the Master’s in Urban Secondary Teaching program. The degree, offered by CSU’s College of Education and Human Services, is a 14 month accelerated, selective, field-based graduate teacher education program that prepares secondary teachers to teach in urban schools.

The Council of Great City Schools is a coalition of the nation's largest urban school systems and seeks to improve public education and educational innovation in urban communities across the United States.

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