Doctor of Educational Leadership

The Ed.D. in Educational Leadership at CSU Pueblo is designed to provide a practice-based doctoral degree for educational leaders who wish to advance their knowledge and skills to address the critical issues and challenges that exist in the field of education. To meet the rural, regional, and national need for highly-qualified educational leaders, this program will be offered online.  The unique design of this program recognizes the application of leadership in the daily work of educators in P-12 or higher education.

Specific Admission Requirements

Regular status will be given to degree-seeking students who meet all of the following requirements:

• A master’s degree & Principal Licensure (or master’s plus 3 years of professional experience).
• A letter of interest that outlines the candidate’s reason(s) for applying to the Ed.D. program and how they expect to both benefit from and contribute to it.
• Two recommendations from Individuals who can speak to potential success in this doctoral program.

International students whose native language is not English must also meet the English language proficiency standard set forth in the Graduate Admissions section of the CSU-Pueblo Catalog.

Continuation

To continue in the program, students must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.000.

Program Goals & Student Learning Outcomes

1. Completers are transformative leaders who engage with complex perspectives to strategically promote inclusive, non-oppressive school contexts that serve the best interests of students, families, and communities for a more equitable and socially-just education system and society.
2. Completers are reflective practitioners who seek and embrace critical feedback with the personal insight necessary to continuously improve and are willing to fully dedicate their knowledge, skills, and passion towards becoming critically conscious scholars, researchers, and change agents.
3. Completers are critical consumers of knowledge that base leadership and professional practice as a leader and scholar on historical and cultural awareness, ethics, and professionalism for the communities served.
4. Completers are academic scholars who are able to design and implement scientific inquiry for the development of new knowledge and data-driven decisions to improve practice.
5. Completers are advocates who have the necessary tools for the design, planning, communication, implementation, and assessment of current or proposed policy and how to engage with appropriate entities for effective change.

Outcomes Assessment Activities

The assessment plan for Colorado State University-Pueblo’s Ed.D. ensures that the program 1) monitors individual student progress necessary to support success, 2) provides summative information on student proficiency on all performance-based standards, and 3) provides reliable and valid information on the program’s successes and weaknesses to ensure continuous program improvement. The assessment design has four components:

1. Student outcomes and tasks aligned with professional program standards.  
2. A series of evaluation tools that are used by faculty within courses and at program completion to assess student performance in meeting all standards.
3. A system for documenting and monitoring student progress using the student’s electronic portfolio.
4. A system to identify program strengths and weaknesses resulting in continual program improvement.

Performance Standards, Program Alignment and Evaluation Criteria

A range of tasks aligned to program standards, curriculum and instructional activities throughout the program provide multiple sources of evidence to assess performance on each program standard. These tasks include a range of examples of teaching and learning, most of them authentic, including all of the following:

• Developing curriculum plans.
• Self-reflection/evaluation.
• Mentored supervision and evaluation of work in the field.
• Case study analysis and response.
• Teacher-constructed exams and quizzes.
• Materials and artifacts from community and parent outreach included in the electronic portfolio.
• Research-based papers, position statements, presentations, etc.
• School change plan.
• Policy brief critiques and memos.
• Developing school culture plan.
• Developing a distributed leadership plan.
• Quantitative & qualitative research studies.
• Dissertation on a topic related to educational leadership

​Graduate students begin developing their electronic portfolio with their first course. Faculty will review materials and communicate their feedback to the student. Documents that demonstrate their performance on specific standards are added throughout the program.

Program Completion. Completion of a written dissertation, public presentation of dissertation, and private defense of dissertation to student's advisory committee.

Program Completer Self-Evaluation. At the end of their final course, students will complete a self-evaluation of their performance across program standards and an evaluation of the quality of the program.

Specific Program Requirements

Students enter with a Master’s degree & Principal Licensure (or Master’s plus 3 years related experience).

Specific Graduation Requirements

All students must fulfill the following requirements for a graduate degree:

• A cumulative graduate GPA of 3.000 or better at graduation. A maximum of six semester hours of course work at the grade of C+ or C may be applied toward graduation. A maximum number of nine semester hours of transfer credit may be applied to the degree.
• Regular student status.
• The program’s minimum number of hours of approved course work (58 credit hours).
• Completion of a written dissertation, public presentation of dissertation, and private defense of dissertation to student's advisory committee.
• Submission of a graduation planning sheet signed by the student’s graduate advisor and program director, in accordance with published deadlines during the semester is to occur. The deadline for submission is published in the Semester Notes, University Calendar, and CSU Pueblo Catalog.