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Quality Leadership Matters

The University Council for Educational Administration is a consortium of higher education institutions committed to advancing the preparation and practice of educational leaders for the benefit of schools and children. We welcome you to our knowledge portal.

Thursday
May242012

UCEA Shares Research with NPR Reporters from Across the Nation

UCEA’s Executive Director, Michelle D. Young, was invited to participate in a two-day workshop for NPR-National Public Radio- reporters earlier this week.  Twenty-Seven reporters from across the country as well as NPR headquarters staffers spent two days focused on education issues, with a key focus on educational leadership and leadership preparation.  Young worked along side Ed Pauly of the Wallace Foundation to build an understanding of these important issues and the research base for preparation and practice. Reporters were provided with expert contacts from UCEA member institutions, examples of excellent programs and practices, and UCEA’s newest resource, Just Ask: A Guide for Examining Leadership Preparation from UCEA.

Thursday
May172012

Jackson Scholar Call for Nominations

UCEA Member Deans, Chairs and Plenum Session Representatives,

The UCEA Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Program Advisory Committee is pleased to announce the 2012 Call for Nominations for the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Program. The purpose of the Jackson Scholars Program is to develop future faculty of color for the field of educational leadership and policy.  It provides outstanding students of color mentoring, networking and professional development intended to prepare them to be successful in the professorate.

To submit your nomination(s) for Mentor and/or Scholar, please CLICK HERE.

Wednesday
May162012

The Vitality of our Growth for the Field of Educational Leadership and Policy

To posit the title as a question, how should we rather define this vitality and who will contribute to this vitality? Robert Ibarra in Beyond Affirmative Action (2001) provides a critical theoretical contribution to the importance of diversity in the professoriate. Ibarra explains that multicontextuality is an ability to think and function in multiple languages and literacies, contexts or cognitive styles, in order to respond to current trends in economic, civic, and personal spheres. Ibarra further links the need for a diverse professoriate by explaining that those with greater multicontextuality better navigate the complexities of a diverse society. Tara Yosso (2005) in “Whose Culture has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth,” reframes social and cultural capital theory by further acknowledging that linguistic, aspirational, navigational, resistance and familial capitals also lead to greater opportunities. As a member of the professoriate in educational leadership and policy, and with a critical consciousness of multicontextuality and community cultural wealth, I believe that these two theoretical contributions explain why programs like the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars and the David L. Clark Graduate Student Seminars are crucial to the vitality of our growth for the field of educational leadership and policy. 

To further elaborate, currently in the state of education politics we face numerous deficit thinking based movements. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court this fall will hear the case of Fischer v. Texas, a revisit to the use of Affirmative Action, where since Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) the use of race is allowable only as an equally valued criterion among other criteria. Fischer v. Texas will challenge the use of race in any dimension in the admissions process, which may also influence the use of race applied to various school desegregation efforts. Furthermore, the state of education politics is currently being overrun in some states, like that of my home state of New Mexico, by what some are calling the Techno-Scholastic Complex. It is this reality that worry many of us in educational leadership where the use of student tests become a much greater tool for profit at the expense of good educators and ultimately a quality educational opportunity for all children. In New Mexico, The Land of Enchantment, or perhaps now disenchantment, Governor Susana Martinez on April 11, 2012 through executive order is now mandating the implementation of evaluating all licensed school personnel using student test scores to inform 50% of their annual evaluation beginning this coming school year. The explanation in the Governor's executive order is that current evaluation statute does not work and is over-simplistic, and more importantly, this is a response to the NCLB Waiver requirements by the Obama Administration. As a side note, the evaluation system that was in place before was deliberatively developed with practitioners, elected officials, and scholars, along with some representing UCEA in the evaluation system of school principals. In context, in a state where slightly over 2/3 of the K-12 student population is ethnically diverse, and the state constitution requires educators to speak both English and Spanish, and in a state where the growth of dual-language programs continue to highlight their success with linguistically diverse students, the new leap into a greater testing environment is unacceptable and ultimately regrettable. Ultimately, listening to the tenets of multicontextuality and community cultural wealth, and in the words of Terry Orr, I believe that “connecting the dots” through the realities and experiences of our children, policy, and our work, our incoming generation of diverse scholars are part of the necessary response to the complexities and realities of the education system.
Nonetheless, given the current state of education politics, and the growing demand to critically prepare educators for the growing education policy complexities that may be devastating for educational opportunity for all children, it is essential for our field to consider and recognize how multicontextuality and community cultural wealth speak to us about the importance of our diverse graduate student recruitment into the professoriate. Time and time again as I visit with our student’s research at events through the David L. Clark Graduate Student Seminars and the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Program, I recognize that our graduate students, their creativity, their new energy (vitality), are the pulse of educational leadership and policy.
With that said, I look forward to continue to see growing support from our UCEA member institutions by nominating and financially supporting their diverse graduate students for the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Program and David L. Clark Graduate Student Seminars and attendance for both the UCEA Conventions and AERA Meetings.  UCEA will soon be accepting nominations for Jackson Scholars and Nominations for the 2012-2014 Cohort through June 22, 2012 via an online form. Please see your PSRs, Chairs or Deans for details and for nominating support. 
Respectfully,
-Cristóbal Rodríguez, UCEA Associate Director of Graduate Student Development
Tuesday
May152012

UCEA Launches Graduate Student Summit 2012 - Exploring the Future of Leadership Preparation: Alternative Perspectives, Frameworks and Methods

WHO:             UCEA Graduate Students Council

WHAT:           UCEA Graduate Student Summit 2012

WHEN:           November 14, 2012 – November 15, 2012

WHERE:         Denver Marriott Center City - Denver, CO

The purpose of the First Annual UCEA Graduate Student Summit is to provide a space for graduate students to engage in authentic dialogue about their scholarly work.  As emerging scholars in the field, this summit offers a unique opportunity for graduate students to create new professional and social relationships that allow them to learn from and share their knowledge with each other, while enhancing their work both at and beyond the summit. 

The summit will serve as a pre-conference  the UCEA Convention. The summit will commence on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 at 3 p.m. and conclude on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 1 p.m.  This summit will offer opportunities to collaborate and network with graduate students from across the country and leading scholars in the field.  Summit participants will have the opportunity to partake in paper sessions, workshop sessions, and networking sessions.  To submit a proposal to the summit, visit the following link: http://www.ucea.org/graduate-student-summit-propos/.  Proposals are due by June 1, 2012. 

ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS:

For only $30, the summit will include:

  • A networking reception on Wednesday evening with UCEA Plenary Session Representatives and the UCEA Executive Committee
  • A working lunch on Thursday to solicit ideas for how the GSC can better serve graduate students
  • The opportunity to develop peer mentors to work with at the convention and beyond
  • The opportunity to get additional small group mentoring from faculty during the 2012 UCEA Convention
  • The opportunity to have your work published online

For more information,  please feel free to contact Erin Anderson, UCEA Graduate Assistant, ea4f@virginia.edu 

Tuesday
May152012

UCEA Announces Graduate Student Fellows for 2012

UCEA is proud to announces the 2012 GSF fellows. The UCEA GSF aims to provide research, mentoring and career development opportunities for an outstanding graduate student who is enrolled in an UCEA member educational  leadership program and intends to enter the professoriate.  The UCEA Program Center fellow will receive a stipend of $5,000.

The 2012 fellows are Brad Davis and Kathryn Torres. Brad Davis is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. He will be working at UCEA's Center for the Evaluation and Improvement of Leadership Preparation and Practice. Kathryn Torres is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington and will be working at UCEA Headquarters on a project geared toward supporting UCEA's Program Center Efforts. 

UCEA Program Centers

  • UCEA Joint Program Center for the Study of the Superintendency and District Governance

  • UCEA Center for Educational Leadership and Social Justice

  • UCEA Center for the Study of Leadership in Urban Schools

  • UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE)

  • UCEA Center for the Study of Leadership & Ethics

  • UCEA Center for the Study of Academic Leadership

  • UCEA Center for the Study of School Site Leadership

  • The National Center for the Evaluation of Educational Leadership Preparation and Practice

Julian Vasquez Heilig, Ph.D. ▪ Associate Professor, Educational Policy and Planning ▪ Associate Professor, African and African Diaspora Studies (by courtesy) ▪ Faculty Associate, Center for Mexican American Studies ▪ Faculty Affiliate, Center for African and African American Studies ▪ Coordinator, M.Ed. Program in Educational Policy and Planning ▪ University of Texas at Austin ▪ Associate Director of Program Centers, University Council for Educational Administration