College of DuPage and Lewis University Announce a New Enhanced 2+2 Bachelor of Arts Degree Program in Early Childhood Education

College of DuPage and Lewis University have announced the details of an Enhanced 2+2 agreement that offers a competitively priced, streamlined opportunity for students to earn an associate's degree from COD and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Early Childhood Education from Lewis University in just four years.

“This offering brings our Enhanced 2+2 partnerships with Lewis University full circle,” Dr. Jean V. Kartje, College of DuPage Vice President of Academic Affairs. “Through this additional agreement with Lewis University, we now offer opportunities for students to earn their associate's degree from COD and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lewis in Early Childhood Education, Elementary Education, Special Education or a combined degree in Special Education/Elementary Education.”

Students in this program will pay COD tuition rates for their first four semesters. For semesters five to eight, Lewis will offer a tuition rate that is 60 percent of the university's most recently published undergraduate tuition. These agreements are open to new and current COD students, as well as former Teacher Preparation students.

“We are so happy to have entered into this partnership with the College of DuPage,” said Dr. Pam Jessee, Dean of Lewis University's College of Education. “We have had the opportunity to build collaborative relationships with the excellent faculty and administrators there and to work towards this goal of creating a program that will greatly benefit the students as well as the P-12 communities that surround both Glen Ellyn and Romeoville.

I believe that together we can produce truly exceptional educators who will transform schools for the better. I am greatly looking forward to meeting the COD/Lewis students who will be enrolled in the foundational and technology classes on the COD campus this fall as they transition into the College of Education here at Lewis University.”

The College of Education at Lewis University has worked with more than 60 school districts and has numerous partnership agreements throughout the Chicago region. Programs are accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and approved for entitlement by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE).

The first four semesters of classroom and practicum-based coursework will be taught by COD instructors in Glen Ellyn. The fifth semester of advance-level instruction will be taught by Lewis University faculty on COD's campus, with semesters six and seven offered at Lewis University's Main Campus in Romeoville. The eighth semester of this program will include student teaching at Lewis University's partnering school locations near COD's Main Campus in Glen Ellyn.

“Usually, earning these educational degrees as a transfer student would take a student five years to complete,” Kartje said. “These remarkable Enhanced 2+2 agreements enable students to finish in just four years.”

For more information about the College of DuPage and Lewis University Enhanced 2+2 Education agreements, please call COD Admissions Representative Jose Alferez at (630) 942-3146, alferezj@cod.edu, or Joan Williams, Lewis University Director of Advising/Certification Officer, College of Education, at (815) 836-5268, williajo@lewisu.edu.