Re-envisioning the Professional Doctorate for Educational Leadership and Higher Education Leadership: Vanderbilt University's Peabody College Ed.D. Program

Abstract

This article describes the process by which the faculty of the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College conceived and implemented a new doctoral program designed for senior education practitioners. The authors describe the organizational context in which decisions were made. Next, they explain the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of the revised degree program. Then, specifics of the program curriculum and delivery are detailed. Finally, the article explores how the reconceptualized program is differentiated from the traditional research doctorate. At Vanderbilt, the Ed.D. is designed for mid-career professionals with an orientation to practice who seek a terminal degree and career advancement within their organizations. It is oriented toward solving problems of practice and takes as its goal placement of graduates into senior leadership positions within educational organizations.

Enacting Inclusivity Through Engaged Pedagogy: A Higher Education Perspective

“…In the wake of calls for purposeful restructuring to make curricula relevant (Levine, 2005), early signs of reform have emerged. For example, the Peabody Journal of Education (2009) devoted a special issue to the need for change and changes in educational leadership programs are occurring, including the Harvard Graduate School of Education's (2009) announcement of a new doctoral program to reform U.S. educational leadership (see also, Caboni & Proper, 2009). Notably absent from these efforts, however, has been in-depth attention to issues of diversity and pedagogy and their relationship to the roles of individual faculty members.…”

The Role of Candidate Assessment within Educational Leadership Doctoral Programs

“…Emerging assessment practices do appear to reflect and support greater levels of degree program differentiation, with the introduction of leadership performance measures, scholar practitioner portfolios, and modified practice-based dissertations and/or capstone projects. Recent studies (Caboni & Proper, 2009;Cosner et al, 2012;Everson, 2009;Huang et al, 2012;Wergin, 2011;Zambo & Isai, 2013) provide detailed descriptions of these professional practice-oriented approaches as applied in educational leadership programs, consistent with demonstrating the EdD student's "mastery of inquiry into practice" (Wergin, 2011, p. 130). If these practices contribute to an "appropriate range and choice of assessment opportunities throughout a program of study," as advocated by Evans (2013, p. 79) for effective assessment practices, it is possible that these new assessment practices will enhance student reflection, self-assessment, and learning.…”

“…Recent EdD program reforms bring renewed attention to these concerns across a number of domains, such as program design, key features, and assessment (Caboni & Proper, 2009;Cosner, Tozer, & Smylie, 2012;Everson, 2009;Goldring & Schuermann, 2009;Marsh & Dembo, 2009;Perry, 2012;Shulman et al, 2006;Wergin, 2011). Investigations of these reforms challenge previously untested assumptions about the effectiveness of "revered and institutionalized" assessment practices (Archbald, 2008, p. 705) across the arc of student matriculation in advanced degree programs, from assessment for admission through assessment of knowledge acquisition and, finally, to the culminating assessment.…”

“…Similar to practice in other professional fields (Norcross, Hanych, & Terranova, 1996), the majority of EdD and PhD programs in leadership preparation continue to use the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) for admission to their programs. However, there is a growing discussion of alternative or complementary approaches that assess candidates based on their suitability for the specific field of study-that is, educational leadership (Caboni & Proper, 2009;Everson, 2009;Jackson & Kelley, 2002). Kochan and Locke (2009) summarized a variety of assessment strategies for admission into educational leadership programs introduced in the last decade, including stakeholder selection panels, prior demonstrated leadership accomplishments, interviews, portfolios, and leadership assessments.…”

“…• annual reviews by program faculty who provide performance feedback to students and formative recommendations for improvement (Caboni & Proper, 2009), • performance-based leadership assessments tied to yearlong principal residencies (Cosner et al, 2012), • dissertation or culminating project assessment rubrics based on specific indicators (Bresciani & Uline, 2012;Everson, 2009), • participatory action research projects wherein students study and act on significant problems (Wergin, 2011), • results of action research dissertations reported to a stakeholder audience (Zambo & Isai, 2013); and • systematic annual and longitudinal analysis of school-level data to determine the impact of graduates' leadership practice (Cosner et al, 2012).…”