Karen Symms Gallagher

Karen Symms Gallagher is the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education. Under her leadership, the school has risen to Top Ten among all graduate schools of education in the country and pioneered the practitioner-focused education doctorate, an EdD program that serves as a national model; USC Rossier launched the groundbreaking online Master of Arts in Teaching degree, which has now prepared more than 3,000 teachers. She was also honored with USC’s inaugural Provost’s Prize for Innovation in Educational Practice. Dean Gallagher has been a professor, scholar, and academic administrator at both public and private research universities throughout the United States. She is currently chair of the board of directors of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), the nation’s only teacher-accreditation organization, and was previously the dean of education at the University of Kansas and directed the Commission on Educational Improvement for Ohio. She has a long career of proactively collaborating on teacher preparation improvement; joining with other education leaders over a decade ago to form Deans for Impact, an organization that aims to improve educator preparation through data-driven initiatives. Dr. Gallagher holds a PhD in educational leadership and administration from Purdue University.

updated 2020