Department of Educational Leadership
The Department of Educational Leadership prepares professionals to be leaders in a variety of settings: public schools, libraries, institutions of higher education, and adult education programs.
The program focuses on the general principles and techniques of administering a wide variety of schools and other education organizations and facilities, supervising educational personnel at the school or staff level, and that may prepare individuals as general administrators and supervisors. Program courses include a practical component, training in observation and research techniques, evaluation, and creative problem solving.
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Department Mission
The Department of Educational Leadership prepares culturally responsive educational leaders who promote meaningful societal change.
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Belief Statements
- We believe that faculty members lead by example.
- We believe that faculty members should develop and promote best practices in teaching, research, and service.
- We believe that the quality and competiveness of the department's programs are a primary responsibility of all faculty members.
- We believe that faculty members should display culturally responsive and respectful behavior.
- We believe in preparing educational leaders to be consumers and producers of research in order to function effectively in a dynamic and ever-changing world.
- We believe in collaboration among disciplines and between our department and the communities we serve.
- We believe excellent teaching is guided by quality scholarship.
- We believe the integrity and efficacy of faculty are developed and enhanced through academic freedom and shared governance.
- We believe that high quality programs are achieved through faculty expectations that instill academic rigor, specific measurable outcomes, student accountability, and deliberate evaluation and feedback.
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Vision
The Department of Educational Leadership has a unique role given our university's history as a teacher's college. We are situated at the crossroads of both a rural community and one of the largest urban areas in the country. We aim to create an environment that embraces the experiences our faculty and students bring from across P-16 in these communities. We believe in the importance of quality teaching and mentoring that is directive, informative, and inspiring. We are committed to fostering meaningful relationships, innovation, and scholarship that address critical issues in education so that we empower a courageous community of educational leaders to create the world we want to live in.
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Values
Innovation: We value creative and experimental approaches to teaching, inquiry, and service and the distribution of resources to support such efforts and initiatives.
Inquiry: We value faculty and students engaging in practices and processes of asking questions; conducting scholarly research, writing, and publishing; performing meaningful assessments; sharing our knowledge publicly; and impacting/affecting change in our professions, schools, colleges/universities, and communities.
Learning Partnerships: We value the relational aspects of learning. As such, we empower faculty, students, staff, and community to contribute to our collective knowledge production; recruit and retain students, faculty, and staff with a range of lived experiences and perspectives; expand our thinking by sharing new knowledge; contribute and value expertise and lived experiences; engage in mentoring; and being accountable and responsible for our individual and collective success.
Meaningful Professional Communities: We value the building of a positive culture within the department, college, university, and professions. Respect of perspectives, mutual support, collaboration, partnerships, and trust are important to the maintenance of these communities.
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Goals
- Prioritize Learning Partnerships
- Foster Innovation
- Advance Educational Solutions
- Strengthen Community Partnerships