Reference
Strategic Action Plan 2004
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
Adopted: September 11, 2000; Updated: October 15, 2001; Updated February
16, 2004
Strategic Directions:
While maintaining high quality programs to prepare educational
leaders and scholars, the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy
Analysis will:
- Expand and enhance the focus on equity, diversity, and difference
in instruction, as well as within the faculty, staff, and student body.
- Provide professional development opportunities and research-based
support to the profession that advances the quality of administrative
practice and policy.
- Continue to build on and integrate our strengths in research productivity,
extramural funding, and high quality teaching, including the expanded
use of technology in administrative practice.
1. Enhancing Diversity
Focus: Expand and enhance the focus on equity, diversity,
and difference in instruction, as well as within the faculty, staff,
and student body.
Goals:
1.1 Develop and implement a recruitment and admissions
strategy that includes an emphasis on enhancing diversity and difference
in the student body.
1.2 Identify opportunities for faculty to work individually
and collectively to advance research agendas that promote equity, diversity
and difference.
1.3 Identify a set of outcomes expectations, and pathways
for achieving those outcomes (admissions, instruction, and socialization
processes) that promote equity, diversity, and difference. Identify
an assessment strategy to evaluate student performance on these outcome
expectations.
1.4 Plan and offer collaborative seminars with urban
institutions in the CIC, such as the University of Illinois-Chicago
or Northwestern University that address issues of diversity and in educational
leadership.
1.5 Ensure that all faculty, staff, and student recruitment
efforts actively pursue candidates from non-traditional backgrounds
Selected Accomplishments:
Admissions materials have been revised to encourage students to indicate
in their application essays what contribution they will make to enhancing
diversity in the department. The department has begun to make contact
with institutions and individuals to promote diversity in student applicants,
and has a recruitment plan under development to enhance diversity in
recruitment, admissions, and program.
The October, 2003 and January, 2004 Faculty Retreats focused on diversity
and difference, and resulted in identification of the following outcomes
related to equity, diversity and difference that we will work to ensure
all of our students have by the time they complete their academic programs:
1. A broad understanding of the national educational landscape, including
issues and context related to diversity and difference, and how the
broader landscape relates to them in their own context
2. An ability to collect and analyze data (including disaggregation
of data) to identify problems related to unequal learning outcomes
3. An ability to identify and a familiarity with proven solutions, and
an understanding of the tools and strategies needed to effectively implement
solutions
4. A commitment to advancing opportunities for persons of color.
Recent and continuing faculty research (e.g. Cabrera, Capper, Conrad,
Jackson, Mead) address critical leadership and organizational issues
related to diversity and difference
Challenges and Opportunities:
Constructing standards and assessments for addressing diversity, equity,
and social justice within the curriculum
Ensuring that diversity is addressed in each of the other strategic
initiatives and priorities
Building partnerships and engaging systematically in collaboration with
diverse institutions, schools, colleges, universities and groups
2. Providing Research-Based Capacity and Resources for Professional
Development
Focus: Provide professional development opportunities
and research-based support to the profession that advances the quality
of administrative practice and policy.
Goals:
2.1 Re-design and strengthen the PK-12 Administrator
Certification Program
2.2 Explore the feasibility of developing: (a) mentoring
programs for first-year administrators, and (b) on-campus, on-line,
or distance-delivered academies/programs for novice or experienced administrators
in both pre-K-12 and postsecondary education
2.3 Plan and conduct annually the Wisconsin Leadership
Conference
Selected Accomplishments:
Redesigned and strengthened the PK-12 Administrator Certification Programs
with a focus on data-based decision-making and instructional leadership
Sought and received a grant from the Campus Division of Continuing Studies
to develop and pilot a Master Administrator Capstone Certificate Program
Served over 400 administrators through the professional associations
via the Gates Academy in 2002 and 2003. Working with WASDA and AWSA
to identify vehicles for ongoing collaboration and outreach to the field.
Provided design consultation and support for the Wisconsin Center for
the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE)
Continued to operate the Cooperative Programs at Oshkosh and Whitewater,
thereby expanding access to administrative certification and licensure
programs
Contributed to national and state discussions and local initiatives
leading to new standards and strategies for school leader recruitment,
preparation and development
Initiated the offering of courses at a distance through the Pyle Center.
Working with WASDA to provide professional development opportunities
for Wisconsin District Administrators through the WASDA networks
Obtained DPI approval and staffed coursework leading to certification
for existing Wisconsin Instructional Technology Coordinators in 2003
and 2004.
Challenges and Opportunities:
Implementing and refining a research-based, inquiry-focused school leader
preparation program
Finding incentives and rewards for integrating research and professional
development endeavors
Expanding the effective and wise use of technology to deliver professional
and leadership development with new partners
Addressing intellectual property issues associated with increased use
of technology in instruction
3. Building Upon and Integrating Strengths in Research and Teaching
Focus:Continue to build on and integrate our strengths
in research productivity, extramural funding, and high quality teaching,
including the expanded use of technology in administrative practice.
Goals:
3.1 Examine and refine the research sequence.
3.2 Recruit and fill key faculty and instructional
staff positions
3.3 Support the expanded use of technology by faculty,
staff, and students
3.4 Strengthen the Educational Policy Leadership program
3.5 Integrate the Continuing and Vocational Education
Program into the Higher, Postsecondary and Continuing Education Strand
3.6 Consider expanding and refocusing recruitment and
student funding strategies to become more competitive for the top students
(including students of color) in the national market
Selected Accomplishments:
- Completed several national faculty searches with exceptional results.
New faculty have built strength in quantitative research methodology
- Review and analysis of the research course sequence planned to begin
Fall, 2004.
- Succeeded in changing the name of the program to Educational Leadership
and Policy Analysis, effective Summer 2004.
- Plan publication of Department Report and American Education Week
- Conference to kick off name change and celebrate the addition of Continuing
and Vocational Education to the program
Challenges and Opportunities:
- Finding, recruiting, and supporting high quality students committed
to leadership practice and inquiry
- Locating strategic resources for research
- Identifying sufficient office space for faculty, staff, and research
programs
- Setting and sustaining standards for admitting practicing educators
interested in becoming inquiry-focused educational leaders
Core Values:
The department mission is expressed and affirmed in our commitment to:
- Leadership: The preparation and ongoing development of scholar-practitioners
who are reflective and change-oriented leaders engaged in continuous
reexamination and improvement of professional practice.
- Connected Teaching and Learning: The personal and intellectual growth
of students and faculty alike through teaching and learning experiences
that seek to connect theory with practice by drawing on the knowledge,
experiences, and perspectives of program participants and practicing
professionals.
- Pursuit and Advancement of Knowledge and Understanding: The pursuit
of knowledge, understanding and insight through active participation
by the faculty and students in the generation and rediscovery of knowledge
through scholarly inquiry, teaching and learning, and professional service.
- Diversity: A learning community that celebrates wholeness while, at
the same time, values the richness of differences in life experiences,
cultural backgrounds, ways of knowing, and perspectives of its individual
members. The department seeks to renew itself continually by attracting
faculty and students who contribute to this diversity as well as enhance
the larger community.
- Ethic of Service: The belief that serving the larger interests of
society–local, state, regional, national, and international–is
a privilege, not merely an obligation, for both faculty and students.
- Challenge: Mutually shared expectations for intellectual rigor and
challenge which encourage students and faculty to engage in active learning
and inquiry, invest in their own and other's growth and development,
and to think more critically, reflexively, and holistically.
- Support: A supportive and collaborative learning environment in which
a climate of trust, mutual support, and respect for others' views encourages
program participants to question orthodoxies and take risks in ways
that help them to expand the boundaries of their potential.
- Freedom of Inquiry and Expression: Freedom of inquiry and expression
and to the rights and obligations of faculty and students to pursue
knowledge and understanding wherever their search may lead.
- Just Community: A just community in which all members are expected
to treat each individual with respect and fairness and hold themselves
accountable to the highest professional and ethical standards.
- Individualization Within Community: The belief that while everyone
should be involved in activities related to research, teaching and service,
community members may contribute differently to enacting the mission
of the department on the basis of individual differences.
(Source: Department mission statement, May 5, 1992)
Department Faculty, Staff and Advisory Committee
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