• EDL 700: Knowledge Base
• EDL 701: Leadership in Educational Organizations I
• EDL 702: Leadership for Organizational Learning
• EDL 703: Leading Organizational Change
• EDL 646: Leadership for School Family Community Engagement
• EDL 571: Design Thinking in Education
• EDL 669: Leadership for Creative Problem Solving

• EDL 751: Foundations of Inquiry
• ELS 620: Introduction to Action Research
• EDL 771: Seminar in Educational Leadership: Action Research Methods and Analysis
• EDL 792: Research in Educational Leadership

• Required Topical Seminars (1 credit each)
  • EDL 770 – 210: Topical Seminar in Educational Leadership: Academic Writing
  • EDL 770 – 211: Topical Seminar in Educational Leadership: The Literature Review
  • EDL 770 – 212: Topical Seminar in Educational Leadership: Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks
• EDL 704: Politics of Educational Leadership (recommended elective for Ed.D. students)
• Electives can be taken within or outside the Department of Educational Leadership Studies.
• You should get approval for electives from your advisory chair (our department’s director of graduate studies) or your dissertation chair prior to enrollment in a course.

Fall

Spring

Summer

Fall

Spring

Summer

Fall

Spring

Summer

Fall

Spring

Oriented toward Educational Leaders

Online, Cohort-based Experience with Summer Doc Week

Relevant, Authentic Problems of Practice in School Contexts

Eligibility

You must have:

• a graduate degree (master’s degree) from an accredited college or university, with a minimum graduate GPA of 3.5
• a combined Verbal & Quantitative score of 1000 (old GRE scale) or 300 (new GRE scale), Analytical Writing: 4.0 or percentile rank of 49

Application Documents

• UK Application for Admission
• Official transcripts from all postsecondary institutions that you attended
• Professional resume (limited to 2 pages) that provides your name and contact information as well as postsecondary education (all degrees, years awarded, institution names, emphasis area), work experiences, education certifications, professional memberships
• A personal statement/professional essay (3-5 double-spaced pages, word-processed in either Times New Roman 12-point or Ariel 10-point, page numbers and your name in upper right corner). If you cite literature/resources to support your comments, adhere to the academic writing guidelines provided in the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
  • Part I: Provide background about your experiences as a leader and share how these experiences have prompted you to enroll in a doctoral program in educational leadership studies. Share your career aspirations and explain how completing an Executive Ed.D. program will assist you in achieving your professional goals.
  • Part II: Articulate your beliefs, perceptions, and reflections about each of the following four themes related to effective leadership: (a) a vision of success, (b) a focus on continuous learning and professional growth, (c) engagement of all stakeholders, and (d) a demonstration of ethical practice.
• Writing sample – (3-5 double-spaced pages, word-processed in either Times New Roman 12-point or Arial 10-point, page numbers and your name in upper right corner). Select one of the complex and sometimes controversial issue sets listed below, explain briefly your understanding of the issue set you selected, and then discuss what it means to provide responsible educational leadership to address those issues. If you cite literature or resources to support your comments, then you must adhere to the academic writing guidelines provided in the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
  • Learning, teaching, and professional ethics;
  • Interaction of student characteristics (e.g., social class, gender, native language, exceptionality, ethnicity) and accountability testing;
  • New organizational structures for schools, political demands, and fiscal limitations.
• Four references including one from your supervisor and one from a college/university faculty member

International Teachers

If your native language is not English, you must submit either a TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or IELTS (International English Language Testing System) score.

• Minimum TOEFL score of 550 (paper-based), 213 (computer-based), or 79 (internet-based)
• Minimum IELTS mean band score of 6.5

Statistical Methods

You must show that you have completed a graduate-level basic statistics course with a grade of B or higher.

• • Applicants to the Ed.D. programs in Educational Leadership Studies must understand statistical concepts and the associated reasoning and critical thinking skills with those concepts such that they are prepared for our program’s advanced quantitative courses. Therefore, applicants to the Ed.D. programs in Educational Leadership Studies must demonstrate proficiency in basic statistical concepts and techniques that constitute the foundation of quantitative research. Applicants may do this in one of the following ways:
  • Show you have passed a course before August 15th of the year of admission covering the application of statistical methods data analysis. Basic descriptive statistics, correlation, normal distributions and hypothesis testing (including correlation and regression) should be covered. An emphasis should be placed on exploratory data analysis and interpretation of results within the broad contexts of education and/or evaluation. Applicants should provide an official course description or syllabus of the course

If you have not taken such a course you may:

• Complete EPE 558 or EDP 558 before August 15th of the year of admission to Educational Leadership Studies. Increasingly, EPE 558 and EDP 558 are being offered online. Applicants and students should check with those departments to determine offerings each semester, OR
• Show proof of completion of the following Open Learning Initiative course: http://oli.cmu.edu/courses/free-open/statistical-reasoning-course-details/. It’s self-paced and free for independent learners.