Welcome Remarks
Shael Polakow-Suransky, GSE ‘00
President, Bank Street College of Education
Shael Polakow-Suransky became the eighth president of Bank Street College of Education on July 1, 2014. Prior to this role, he was the second-in-command at the New York City Department of Education, serving as Chief Academic Officer and Senior Deputy Chancellor. In the nation’s largest school system, Shael oversaw teaching and learning across more than 1,600 district schools and was a strong advocate for teacher and principal autonomy, balanced accountability, and reforms designed to improve learning experiences for the City’s most vulnerable students. Earlier in his career, Shael worked as a teacher and founding principal of Bronx International High School. He holds a BA from Brown University, where Ted Sizer was his mentor, and a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from Bank Street. He is the first alum to serve as Bank Street’s president.
Cecelia Traugh
Dean, Bank Street Graduate School of Education
Cecelia Traugh is the dean of the Graduate School of Education. Throughout her career, Cecelia has combined her roles as a teacher, administrator, and researcher in pursuit of the kind of education that grows out of a valuing of the capacities of children, parents, and teachers. Her areas of concentration include descriptive school-based inquiry, curriculum development and evaluation, and the preparation of teachers for urban schools. Her work includes conducting school-wide inquiry groups in small schools across Manhattan and Brooklyn to investigate issues important to inclusive education and the ongoing development of the schools themselves. Prior to joining Bank Street in 2015, Cecelia served as dean and professor at Long Island University’s School of Education. She began her career teaching high school history and taught at a child detention center in California. She then taught at Wichita State University, where she directed a statewide program offering an urban experience to potential teachers. She worked with Vito Perrone at the University of North Dakota and participated in programs educating Native American teachers for reservation schools. She directed the Middle School at Philadelphia’s Friends Select School and taught graduate courses at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1993, she became the director of research and evaluation at the Institute for Literacy Studies at Lehman College, where she began her school-based inquiry groups and contributed to a monograph series about the work of teachers teaching teachers in New York City. Cecelia holds a BA and MA from UC Riverside and a PhD from UC Berkeley.
