About Us

About Us


Through coursework and field experiences, the Education Leadership (EdL) Program deepens and extends students’ knowledge, skills and habits of mind to ensure they thrive in high-demand and challenging leadership positions as they work to strengthen PK-12 education for children, families and the adults who serve them. We prepare students for careers as practitioners and scholars equipped to lead, manage and transform a wide variety of educational organizations. We emphasize how both students and adults learn and the implications such an approach carries for leadership practice and change. Graduates serve in leadership positions such as school principals, heads of schools, district superintendents, other executive leadership roles, and scholars and professors of education and education leadership.

Our approach bridges research, theory and practice and exists at the intersection of excellence, equity, individual and organizational growth, and leadership for change. With an emphasis on innovation and adult learning as critical components of leadership, we challenge and support our students to become equitable, confident, creative, informed and nimble educator-leaders who use data and evidence to build collaborative professional relationships and inform decisions that affect teachers and students. Most of our students are practitioners who lead and/or teach in a variety of settings including public, independent and charter schools; some students will influence our profession by becoming professors who in turn support leaders in our increasingly complex education environment. Several programs employ a cohort model with scheduling that allows students to retain their full-time jobs as they pursue graduate study.

In all EdL programs, students develop a broad understanding of how to lead educational institutions in our society; analyze the policies and political systems that affect education; grow even more committed to the ideals of equity, diversity and social justice; and exhibit the courage, self-awareness and critical intelligence needed to question what is and develop what could be.

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