0.1 Preface  (Page 3/3)

This handbook has the potential to move the field forward by revealing the processes that prepare educational leaders for today’s educational environments through such mechanisms as action research, collaborative research, problem-based learning, and scholarly inquiry. Educational leadership faculty have enacted new forms of delivery for developing qualified educational leaders through such means as cohort grouping, content focused on problems of practice and democratic issues, critical inquiry skills development, moral and ethical practice, identity construction as scholar-practitioner leaders, effective mentoring and mentoring structures, and alternative forms of assessment. Clearly, there has been an under-reporting of the progress made in advanced educational leadership programs. Our book is the first to address this important missing link by describing recent innovative reform of the EdD and PhD in this field.

While the process of change has greatly influenced university preparation programs, much effort has been applied to masters-level and certification programs; however, as stated earlier, while increasingly doctoral programs have been undergoing revision, the literature lags behind at this level. By closely examining doctoral education, we hope to attract scholars and practitioners to this under-studied but vibrant area. Collectively we focus on the front-end of doctoral study (e.g., issues of recruitment and admissions), the in-between (e.g., quality of faculty mentoring, innovations in program and instructional design, scholarly research development, research preparation for satisfying the demands in high accountability results-oriented environments), and the back-end (e.g., completion rates, scholarly productivity, and post-graduate issues). More attention is needed in the literature on the“in between”within graduate programs (Nettles&Millett, 2006). Thus, we posit that much can be learned from sharing insights into and lessons learned about quality issues at the doctoral level related to organizational and systemic change, program development and design, mentoring and advising, doctoral student–faculty and peer relationships, scholarly inquiry, and critical and collaborative/group learning. Issues and challenges in educational standards, data-driven evaluation and assessment models, accreditation and program reform, curriculum and instruction, social justice and equity, collaboration and dialogue, dissertation (project) preparation and writing, student recruitment and admissions, faculty and student development, doctoral research coursework, and the cohort delivery model are all of general concern in our field.

Education is always marked by challenge and change, but there is, more than ever, a special call for universities that prepare educational leaders. A compelling need exists for programs that are scholarly and relevant, contextualized to meet the changing needs of practitioners in schools, districts, and other educational places of work. We are reminded of the Drucker (2002) quote from Managing in a Time of Great Change cited at the beginning of this preface.

One way this change has been manifested is in the numerous educational leadership doctoral programs that have sprung up in the past 25 years. Educating doctoral students for leadership was once primarily the role of research universities, but this charge has broadened to include many regional universities throughout the nation. At the same time, criticism by the media has been fierce about the quality of new and old programs. This has necessitated the importance of dialogue on how to best bring about change to structure university doctoral programs in educational leadership to prepare individuals who are both scholarly and effective practitioners.

Doctoral programs that follow the transformative scholar-practitioner model are incorporated in this volume. Evidence that this model results in transformed lives and practice was described in several independent studies of doctoral cohorts that credited their scholar-practitioner program with transforming their leadership paradigms and practices to one of expanding notions of social justice, increasing personal capacity, recognizing a need for authenticity, nurturing an enhanced sensitivity to others, and challenging their own unfinished learning to continue as lifelong learners (e.g., Harris, 2005; Horn, 2001; Mullen, 2005).

Readers, we invite you to join our conversation in an effort to learn about one another’s advanced programs and to more fully explore contemporary issues in doctoral education. Most definitely, we welcome your reactions to this book and the opportunity for expanded dialogue.

References

Drucker, P. F. (2002). Managing in a time of great change. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Foster, W. (1986). Paradigms and promises. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

Golde, C. M., Walker, G. E.,&Associates. (2006). Envisioning the future of doctoral education: Preparing stewards of the discipline/Carnegie essays on the doctorate. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Harris, S. (Ed.). (2005). Changing mindsets of educational leaders to improve schools: Voices of doctoral students. Lanham, MD: Rowman&Littlefield Education.

Horn, R. A. (2001). Promoting social justice and caring in schools and communities: The unrealized potential of the cohort model. Journal of School Leadership, 11, 313–334.

Mullen, C. A. (2005). Fire and ice: Igniting and channeling passion in new qualitative researchers. New York: Peter Lang.

Nettles, M.,&Millett, M. (2006). Three magic letters: Getting to the Ph.D. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.