Welcome to the Higher and Postsecondary Education Program
Students may pursue an M.A., Ed.M., or Ed.D. in Higher and Postsecondary Education.
The Master of Arts Program develops knowledgeable practitioners in three domains of higher and postsecondary education: its educational core (teaching and learning, student and professional development), its organizational and institutional framework (policymaking and implementation, planning, organizational development), and its social positioning and comparative potential (policy analysis and comparative study of institutional, state, and national systems). Though students entering the M.A. Program will be exposed to each of the domains, they will specialize in one.
Students who pursue the M.A. degree at Teachers College will build on the program's historic positioning in the study of student development through the college years and its current strengths in studies of academic learning and development. They will also build on the program's growing capacities in higher/postsecondary education policy, social thought, and comparative analysis, as well as on the department's offerings in organizational studies. As such, students earning the M.A. degree will be positioned to serve in a variety of academic and student support positions, as well as in various policy-development, policy-support, and administrative roles.
Please click here for course requirements for the M.A. in Higher and Postsecondary Education Program.
The Master of Education Program develops breadth of understanding of higher and postsecondary education, though emphasizing particular domains of study and practice, among them, academic learning and development, organizational and institutional processes, and social and comparative perspectives. Students in the Ed.M. Program typically use these offerings, to elaborate and deepen their experience-based knowledge and intellectual interests in policymaking, curriculum development, student development, etc. Ed.M. students conclude their programs of study by writing an integrative paper focused on a particular topic of professional and personal interest and drawing on the knowledge resources availed by the three curricular domains.
Students who pursue the Ed.M. in Higher and Postsecondary Education at Teachers College, Columbia University typically bring, to their studies, well developed understandings of particular facets of the enterprise, often from their own participation in the professional practices that define it (teaching, administration, etc.). The Ed.M. Program helps them situate their practice-based knowledge, and their emerging intellectual interests, within the broader span of higher and postsecondary education, thereby availing expanded intellectual resources for their professional efforts.
Please click here for course requirements for the Ed.M. in Higher and Postsecondary Education Program.
The Doctor of Education Program develops breadth of understanding about higher and postsecondary education though with focus on an intellectual issue or professional activity (concentration or emphasis area). Breadth is assured through study within three curricular domains: academic and developmental analysis of higher and postsecondary education, organizational and institutional analysis of higher and postsecondary education, and social and comparative analysis of higher and postsecondary education. Working across these domains and beyond them (through related out-of-program courses), students will work with faculty advisors to develop emphasis areas, among them policy studies, diversity and access studies, studies in student learning and development, and studies of scholarly learning and careers. The Ed.D. requires in-depth study in processes/methods of inquiry appropriate to the area of concentration or emphasis, and reflecting substantial theoretical understanding of the area and approaches to inquiry within it.
Students who pursue the Ed.D. in Higher and Postsecondary Education question and explore the range of perspectives for understanding the enterprise-its educational and intellectual core, its institutional/organizational rubrics, its social and comparative contextualizations. Thus, through their own research (situated within an emphasis area), they participate in reshaping current understandings of postsecondary education. Ed.D. students conclude their programs by writing a dissertation that, though focused on a particular research problem within higher and postsecondary education, reflects the tripartite aims of the curriculum, as well as deep understanding of knowledge structures underpinning their area of inquiry. They are positioned then to scrutinize prevailing views of what it means to engage in the "higher learning," and importantly, of what it means to reconstruct these views in the name of improvement and development.
Graduates of the Ed.D. Program may become policymakers and evaluation specialists in higher and postsecondary education; they may assume substantial leadership responsibilities, as through presidencies or other key administrative posts in colleges and universities or state systems; they may lead university- or college-wide instructional development centers and activities; they may become academic scholars and researchers.
Please click here for course requirements for the Ed.D. in Higher and Postsecondary Education Program.