Dee Berlinghoff, professor emerita of Education at Mount Saint Mary College, recently earned the 2021 TED Distinguished Service Award given by the Teacher Education Division (TED) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC).
TED is a diverse community of professionals who lead and support teacher education on behalf of students with exceptional needs and their families.
The TED Distinguished Service Award is given to an individual who has demonstrated exemplary service to the development and advancement of quality teacher education in special education.
"We are honored to recognize Dr. Dee Berlinghoff for this prestigious award," said Brannan Meyers, CAE, executive director of TED.
Her service to the field of special education and teacher education is unwavering. Berlinghoff, who taught at the Mount for nearly two decades, spent the 2014-2015 school year on sabbatical working in a high-needs K-8 school as part of a School Innovation Grant funded by the New York State Education Department. Her responsibilities included modeling effective instructional strategies in classrooms, providing professional development, and embedded coaching.
Berlinghoff continues to work with school districts as a consultant and provides training in explicit instruction, ELA instruction, and co-teaching. She also recently co-edited CEC's updated Practice-Based standards for the preparation of special educators.
She has been instrumental to TED in her leadership roles, having served as president of the New York State Council for Exceptional Children, the New York State Division for Learning Disabilities, and the Small Special Education Programs Caucus of the Teacher Education Division of CEC. She also served on the presidential line of the Teacher Education Division of CEC and co-chaired the CEC standards development workgroup.