UW Tacoma offers first doctoral degree in Educational Leadership

Responding to local student demand, the University of Washington Tacoma will offer its first doctoral degree, in Educational Leadership (Ed.D.), with classes starting in Summer 2013.

The three-year program will be enroll approximately 30 students and will only admit once every three years. Students will have three study options: P-12 Superintendent, Nursing Education and Higher Education.

The state legislature approved UW Tacoma to offer doctoral programs in 2011. This program is designed to meet the needs of working educational leaders. Students will meet on campus for classes one Friday and Saturday per month. Coursework will also include intensive workshops over the summers and utilize online learning tools.

Instruction will focus on instructional excellence. Doctoral candidates in the program will focus on discovering ways to ensure high student achievement — instructional excellence — and designing methods for scaling that to a whole district or system.

The Nursing Education option is unique and will meet the needs of nurses and nurse educators whose goal is to be part of a college faculty, as the leader of a nursing education program, or head of professional development in a health care setting. This program will meet a great need state and nationwide for more nurse educators with doctoral degrees.

According to a report by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) on 2011-2012 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, U.S. nursing schools turned away 75,587 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2010 due to an insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, and budget constraints. Almost two-thirds of the nursing schools responding to the survey pointed to faculty shortages as a reason for not accepting all qualified applicants into entry-level baccalaureate programs.

The program also addresses the need within Washington state, and specifically Pierce and Thurston counties, for P-12 superintendents and district level administrators. In 2011, Superintendent of the Franklin Pierce School District, Dr. Frank Hewins commented on the value of the proposed program and how its flexibility and location was ideally tailored to meet the needs of students pursuing the degree.

“I regularly encourage my most talented principals to pursue their Ed.D. and superintendent certification,” said Hewins. “Many are interested, but the choices of institutions available are limited and lack enough flexibility in their programs to accommodate school administrators who work very long hours.”

Dr. Ginger MacDonald, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, says that this new program “will establish a center for the development of educational leaders who know how to create systems of excellence to solve our greatest challenges in student achievement for all students across the lifespan.”

More information on the program is available online at tacoma.uw.edu/edd. Applications will be available in July.