The New Mexico Center of Excellence for Early Childhood Education Symposium was held on the Western New Mexico University campus on October 19, 2023. The symposium was created to share with policy makers, educational leaders and other interested stakeholders what it means for WNMU to be designated by the State Legislature as the NM Center of Excellence for Early Childhood Education.
The university received this legislative distinction in 2022 for having developed a full-service center that has been providing early childhood and family services for decades. WNMU provides the highest quality child care, an active research site, a family counseling center, professional development and numerous teacher preparation programs, and it integrates these early childhood services, which is what makes the center’s model unique.
The symposium also provided a forum for discussing child wellbeing in New Mexico and how the various parts of the center put this integrative model of early childhood development into practice.
The symposium began with a welcome from WNMU President Joseph Shepard and Mariachi Plata de WNMU. Attendees then were given a tour of the Child Development Center and were able to visit more than thirty different display stations, each showcasing a different facet of the early childhood program. The displays highlighted topics ranging from food programs to infant mental health to curriculum development, and attendees had an opportunity to converse with staff and faculty about how each area is integrated into a holistic program.
Dean of the WNMU College of Education Cindy Martinez noted use of a teaching approach called “emergent curriculum.” It begins, she explained, “with getting to know your children and knowing their needs and interests, then taking those and using them to scaffold their learning. And so you then design your curriculum based on that particular group of students’ needs and developmental levels. And you implement that into the classroom.”
That is hardly the end of the process, however, as there is an ongoing process of reassessment, creating what is known as a curriculum spiral, explained Martinez.
“As we move forward,” Martinez said, “the vision is to replicate what we do here at in Silver City and at WNMU at other satellites throughout the state. . . We can showcase the successes [the program has had], how we are bridging gaps, and how we are addressing diversity and equity. We want to share how we are doing that in our community and discuss how it can be partnered and modeled in other communities.”
Among the successes the program has had is an A+ rating from the National Council on Teacher Quality for both its undergraduate and graduate programs for preparing future elementary teachers to teach children to read, making WNMU one of only 48 education programs in the nation to receive exemplary marks.
Assistant Professor Wenjie Wang, who was part of the team that planned the symposium, said that she and her colleagues were looking forward to doing more outreach in the state. “Building on the experience and momentum gained from the first symposium,” she said, “we look forward to having more dialogues and collaborations to contribute to our children, families, and communities.”
Shepard agrees that this kind of dialogue is vital. “The Early Childhood Symposium is another way for Western New Mexico University to involve stakeholders who are advancing education and child welfare in New Mexico,” he said, “As the State of New Mexico’s Center of Excellence in Early Childhood it is important for WNMU to take a leadership role in both providing valuable information and data as well as listening to other experts that enhance early childhood education.”
Julie Simmons, the Lab Site Program Administrator, said she was pleased with how the symposium went. “We were able to showcase our amazing programs, not only the College of Education but the lab site schools as well,” she said, “We have an amazing team of educators that displayed their knowledge of early childhood education and the importance of it.”
