WKU News

WKU is one of 22 new graduate schools of education to be accepted into the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate as members of the consortium.

The institutions join more than 80 current schools of education in the important work of redesigning professional practice preparation in education for the improvement of Pre K-20 education and the organizations that support it. 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.

“Although I believe our current program aligns to the ‘spirit’ of many of the guiding principles and design-concepts of CPED, I look forward to the opportunity to learn about models of excellence within CPED by which to evaluate and improve our program,” said Tony Norman, Director of WKU’s Educational Leadership Doctoral Program. “I am eager to be among colleagues and ‘fellow sojourners’ who are thinking about and dealing with the promise and challenges that come with developing, maintaining and enhancing the education doctorate.”

Providing essential leadership and representation at CPED meetings will be Sam Evans, College Education and Behavioral Sciences Dean; Margie DeSander, Educational Administration, Leadership and Research Department Chair, and Dr. Norman, who serves as Principal Investigator. 

“WKU being selected to join the CPED Consortium could not have come at a better time for our Educational Leadership Doctoral Program,” Dr. Norman said.  “For some time now, the EdD Leadership Council that guides our program and I have been discussing ways to expand our audience by enhancing our program offerings and exploring alternative modes of delivery.  Working alongside top-notch schools with similar programs allows us to learn from their successes and avoid their mistakes.”

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 new member, CPED anticipates that adding these institutions to the consortium will add immense value and push CPED’s collective work even farther. 

CPED hosts bi-annual convenings, which take place at member institutions in June and October of each year. New institution members will be invited to attend the upcoming CPED Convening, to be held at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, (CPED’s Headquarters) June 12-14. This convening will celebrate the 10th 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 EdD across multiple contexts. Additionally, new members will meet current CPED members with experience related to both technical and adaptive organizational issues that arise in the process of redesigning the EdD.

About the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED): The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate is a consortium of more than 100 graduate schools of education, that have committed resources to work together to undertake a critical examination of the doctorate in education through dialog, experimentation, critical feedback and evaluation.  The vision of the CPED is to inspire all schools of education to apply the CPED Framework to the preparation of educational leaders to become well-equipped scholarly practitioners who provide stewardship of the profession and meet the educational challenges of the 21st century.  To accomplish this, CPED seeks to strengthen, improve, support and promote the CPED framework through continued collaboration and investigation.

Contact: Tony Norman, (270) 745-3061