Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Director: Richard A. King

The Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies consists of two program areas: Educational Leadership (EL) and Higher Education and Student Affairs Leadership (HESAL). The former program encompasses M.A., Ed.S., and Ed.D. degree as well as Principal and Administrator licensure offerings; the latter sponsors the Ph.D. degree. These programs engaged in an internal program review, and the P-12 oriented programs participated in the recent review by the National Council for the Accrediatation of Teacher Education.

The primary transition within the Division during the past year was the loss of two faculty members; Bruce Barnett to the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Rosemary Caffarella to Cornell University. Full-time affiliate professors Cliff Brookhart, John Stewart, and Richard Rusak capably provided necessary teaching, advisement, and program development resources. In addition, beginning in Summer 2002, Janet Alcorn began teaching one course annually for the Division as part of her responsibilities as Director of the Tointon Institute. The loss of full-time faculty prompted searches for an Associate/Full Professor and an Assistant Professor. As UNC budget reductions commenced, the former search was reauthorized as a search for a second Assistant Professor. There is renewed optimism as the Division rebuilds its capacity to continue delivering excellent degree and licensure programs.

Along with these personnel transitions, there have been many accomplishments within the two programs over the past year. The following description of progress toward many goals summarizes faculty activities in 2002-2003.

Educational Leadership Program

There has been progress toward goals established during the recent program review process. Goals relate to improving programs and degree offerings, faculty scholarly activities, and student recruitment.

The Educational Leadership Program faculty devote considerable time and energy in planning and implementing various program improvements. Faculty recently revised the Ed.D. degree in Educational Leadership to make it more attractive to prospective doctoral students by lengthening the time spent in a cohort and arranging coursework so that the degree could be finished in a more timely fashion. The goal is to make the program more attractive to P-12 educators by offering a more practitioner-based program. The redesign of the Ed. S. degree to coordinate with the requirements of the Administrator License made it easier to obtain both simultaneously. This redesign has resulted in more graduate students completing the Ed.S. degree in Educational Leadership.

Demand has grown for principal preparation programs and school districts have worked with Educational Leadership faculty in implementing partnerships and open-access master's degree and principal licensure programs throughout the state. During the past four years, the Educational Leadership Program implemented partnership programs with Aurora, Cherry Creek, Douglas County, and Littleton School Districts in the Denver metro area and partnerships with Poudre, Thompson, St. Vrain, and Johnstown-Milliken School Districts in the Northern Colorado area. Additionally, an off-campus cohort in Grand Junction will be completed in the Summer 2003. Currently, plans are being made to begin a new Denver cohort in June 2003 and a new Pueblo program in Fall 2003.

The principal licensure program has recently undergone changes to reflect new state requirements. Beginning in Fall 2002 the internship requirement for the principal's license increased from 3 semester hours to 6 semester hours. The three 5 semester hour classes in the Educational Leadership Core changed to 3 semester hour requirements to allow for the increase in the internship requirement. Due to these changes, the principal license requirements changed from 30 semester hours to 27 semester hours. Next year, Colorado will implement new standards for principal licensure and the EL Program will once again revise curriculum to meet these new standards.

The technology needed for on-campus teaching was greatly enhanced by creation of a presentation room. A teaching station with a new computer, internet capacity, enhanced sound system, and VCR/DVD players have been added along with a mounted projector unit. These changes enable faculty and students to more easily use power point presentations and internet capabilities in their on-campus courses. Three faculty members participated in training through the Office of Professional Services to develop on-line courses in the future.

Educational Leadership faculty continue to devote substantial time in planning and delivering high quality degree and licensure programs, in preparing presentations and publications of scholarly works, and serving the university and external professional community. One faculty member applied for a $50,000 grant through the Reader's Digest Wallace Funds for the purpose of strengthening the partnerships and cohorts in off-campus programs. Another faculty member participated in the development of a grant proposal for principal preparation in high-need districts through the School Leadership Initiative.

Faculty seek ways to involve adjunct/affiliate faculty more fully in the design and delivery of degree and licensure programs. All three of the full-time affiliate faculty members have extensive experience as school district administrators and have assisted the unit in the design and delivery of programs. Additionally, affiliate faculty are regularly utilized in off-campus teaching, particularly with the partner districts.

The recent redesign of the Ed.D. degree, a new Ed.D. brochure, and an updated Division ELPS website assisted marketing programs and recruiting students. Making the Ed.D. program more practitioner-oriented resulted in more inquiries from prospective students from P-12 settings. These efforts resulted in a cohort of six excellent doctoral students for Fall 2002. Faculty also work closely with partner school districts in recruiting individuals for the off-campus master's and principal license programs. Our marketing and recruiting efforts in this arena have been highly successful, resulting in several large off-campus cohorts.

Faculty continue to provide relevant and challenging curricula to strengthen students' abilities to understand, analyze, and improve educational leadership and organizations. The involvement of partner districts, affiliate faculty, advisory committees, and guest speakers has expanded students' abilities to understand and improve educational organizations. Educational Leadership faculty have consciously worked to improve performance assessments in all classes. Given the emphasis on performance assessments in the NCATE Review, faculty have designed and implemented new performance assessments during the last two years.

Higher Education and Student Affairs Leadership Program

This report presents progress by HESAL faculty on goals identified during the recent program review. These goals relate to improving program quality and visibility, recruiting and graduating excellent students, strengthening faculty skills through professional development, and involving external stakeholders in program development.

A culture of scholarly inquiry continues to be stressed, both through faculty modeling and intense focus on the development of students' writing and research skills in the first two Doctoral Core courses. After studying input from an external advisory group and consultants, HESAL faculty adopted a conceptual framework to inform decisions about program design and delivery and the development or modification of specific courses.

Efforts to enhance program reputation and visibility through faculty and student involvement in professional associations, scholarly presentations, and publications continue to be successful. Faculty are active in professional associations, and several students have been recognized by regional associations for excellence in professional contributions. Faculty have published, and have mentored students who have made presentations based on their scholarly work in the program.

New efforts have been undertaken to market the program nationally. A new Ph.D. brochure was created, and the web site has been updated. Specific student recruitment efforts have occurred at two regional and two national conferences. These increased efforts have resulted in the receipt of inquiries from a large and diverse number of potential students from both a state/regional and national pool. Based on the early receipt of application materials we have reason to be optimistic that there will be a larger number of completed applications from individuals who are likely to enroll in Fall 2003. The program is committed to the active recruitment and the enrollment of doctoral students of color and students from other groups that are under-represented in the academy. Alumni and current students are assisting faculty in this endeavor. Applications for admission for Fall 2003 include individuals from four different ethnic/racial identities as well as one international candidate.

We seek to secure assistantships related to students' areas of interest, both to provide financial support and to enhance their professional development. For AY 2002-2003 every student in the Ph.D. program who is eligible (9 credit enrollment) and who wishes to have an assistantship has one. We continue to hold this goal as a high priority and are, of course, very dependent on a number of offices on the UNC campus for these positions. We have expanded slightly the number and kinds of experiences for development of leadership knowledge and skills through practica and internships. We continue to place students in a wide variety of experiences in student affairs positions, and have expanded to include experiences in both the academic and the administrative divisions of the University.

We have a goal of requiring students to submit articles for publication in referred journals and to submit proposals for presentations at professional conferences. To complete the second semester of Doctoral Core students must meet this goal. We were pleased that the cohort completing Doctoral Core in Spring 2002 was successful in having their proposal to present their research accepted for a regional conference. That presentation was among the most well-attended at the conference, and the students received accolades for their work.

Faculty have a general goal to graduate students who have demonstrated knowledge, skills, and attributes identified by the faculty as necessary for the award of the research doctorate. Of the six doctoral students who graduated in 2002, one graduate received the Graduate Dean's Citation for Excellence and one received the Graduate Dean's Citation for Outstanding Dissertation. The program also adopted a goal of each faculty member submitting at least one grant proposal per year, either external to the University or to one of the College or University internal grant programs. Two internal proposals were submitted in 2002, and all full-time faculty are currently working on internal and/or external proposals to be submitted prior to the end of the 2002-2003 academic year.

Faculty published in journals and made presentations at national conferences, including the American College Personnel Association, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, Association for the Study of Higher Education, and American Association for Higher Education. In addition to the national conferences, faculty presented at regional and state conferences. They also engaged in activities at a national level as keynote speakers at major conferences, consultants to organizations in leadership training, or as external experts for state-level graduate program reviews.

All faculty have availed themselves of professional development opportunities to learn to use new technologies, including training on BlackBoard for on line courses and training to use the technology in the new "Smart Classrooms." They utilize web-based technology extensively with their classes and advisees and teach classes using the full range of Smart Classroom technology. Faculty acknowledge the importance of involvement in the ongoing activities of campus citizenship and participation in campus governance. They currently serve on Faculty Senate, committees preparing for the North Central accreditation review, curriculum committees, faculty research/grant committees, and faculty recognition committees.

Two meetings were held with the external advisory group, which includes faculty and administrative staff from Colorado State University and Denver University. Information was shared across programs from the three institutions regarding course offerings for which students could enroll at other institutions. Discussions continued on potential options for collaboration between institutions. The HESAL program shared the expenses for a display at the ACPA conference with several other Colorado institutions. This activity served both as a vehicle for student recruitment and for recruitment for staff positions in student affairs.

Through these diverse activities, faculty in both the EL and HESAL programs strive to improve UNC's programs for preparing leaders for educational institutions and to advance our understanding of leadership, organizations and policy.