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LU and 21 other new graduate schools of education join more than 80 members of the consortium in the important work of redesigning professional practice preparation in education for the improvement of PK-20 education and the organizations that support it.

“This is a great opportunity for Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s doctoral program in educational leadership to be involved, through a consortium, in the design and redesign of Ed.D. programs across the country in developing guiding principles for program development,” said Robert Spina, dean of the College of Education and Human Development. “This is cutting edge work in transforming the professional Ed.D. degree for individuals in leadership positions.”

LU’s doctoral program in educational leadership went online in 2011 and has grown steadily. Today, there are around 300 applications for about 45 openings in the next cohort, said Kaye Shelton, associate professor of educational leadership and director of the Center for Doctoral Studies in the College of Education and Human Development.

“In 2013-14, the doctoral faculty sat down to figure a way to keep the program relevant,” said Shelton, who holds a Ph.D. in educational leadership from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and whose dissertation examined the administration of online education programs. “So we started looking at the global aspect.”

“As a faculty, we spent many hours individually, on retreats and in lots of meetings going through and working on our curriculum to change it to a global mindset,” Shelton said. Now, students earn the Ed.D. with a concentration in global educational leadership.

“We’re still working on the dissertation to make it very relevant to students by ensuring it is applicable to real-world problems,” she said. The majority of LU’s students are not going to become college faculty members, but are going right back into the field, she said. “We are committed to continually improving the program and making sure that it is meeting the needs of these education practitioners.”

“Being a member of CPED provides us with resources and access to other programs where the walls of competition are lowered as we sit down at the same table and talk about issues together,” Shelton said.

CPED institution members and their faculty engage in a model of professional development to learn from and with each other the best ways to design professional preparation.

New members were chosen through an application process and evaluated by a CPED committee composed of faculty members of current CPED institutions. Based on the application and support materials provided by each prospective member institution, CPED anticipates that adding these institutions to the consortium will add an immense value and push CPED’s collective work even farther.

CPED hosts bi-annual convenings in June and October at member institutions. LU will be invited to attend the next CPED Convening at the University of Pittsburgh, June 12-14. This will be the 10^th Anniversary of CPED and its theme, Reclaiming to Innovating: CPED @10 years, offers new institution members an opportunity to explore how the CPED framework has impacted the educational doctorate across multiple contexts.