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In 2001, on the eve of 9/11, I made the transition from PK-12 leadership to higher education—a dream I had long held. Several of University of California Berkeley’s School of Education faculty, along with educational leadership faculty from CSU East Bay, San Francisco State, and San Jose State, had been producing white papers for five years that envisioned a joint Ed.D. program that would support the needs of school districts throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Back then, the CSUs were not permitted to offer an independent doctorate and were required to work with a UC campus.
CSU’s Chancellor, Charlie Reed, was at odds with UC’s President Dick Atkinson on the philosophy of the purpose of each system and of the doctorate, and standing between Reed’s intention to change the California Master Plan for Higher Education and the status quo was the partnership of Berkeley with the three CSUs. Thus, it was that I found our proposed program and myself in the eye of a political storm. As successful as our joint doctoral program ultimately became, it was apparent this was an unworkable system, so only four years later, in 2005, the CSUs were authorized to grant the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership independent of the UC campuses. The one doctoral program I was privileged to support in bringing to fruition became four independent programs.
I have often reflected that navigating the labyrinth of two higher education systems and four unique university cultures would not have been possible without the educational leadership support I had received from our CSUs, who were my boots-on-the-ground support as a PK-12 leader. I pay tribute especially to Dr. Linda Lambert, who was my professor during my Administrative Services Credential program at CSUEB and is still my mentor and friend. Berkeley’s LEAD program continues today, as do the independent Ed.D.s of each of our sibling campuses in the Bay Area, and I went on to provide leadership for Ed.D.s at other universities. It was not until 2007 that former President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Lee Shulman, founded what would become The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED).
This summer on my arrival, I began conversations with our SOE professors, CSUCI leadership, and our regional superintendents and other PK-12 leaders and determined that all supported an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership degree that CI founded and led. (A few years before, SOE had had a joint doctoral program with another campus that sunsetted.) From our regional leaders’ perspectives, CI plays a critical role in developing and supporting the next generation of culturally responsive educational leaders. First on the agenda: rejoin CPED and begin the conversation on the national stage. Professors Tiina Itkonnen, Kara Naidoo, Chuck Weis, and Annie White, and I, returned from CPED’s Fall 2022 Convening in Pittsburgh recently, where we engaged with hundreds of professors and other higher
education leaders to provide well-equipped scholarly practitioners for our schools. Thirteen of CSU’s fifteen campuses that offer the Ed.D. are CPED members, so we join an influential network both in California and across the country.
While in an ideal world with many stars aligning, we will launch our Ed.D. program in Summer 2023, our goal is to provide a rigorous and relevant program as soon as is practicable. Lee Shulman, whom I have had the privilege to meet and to learn from, once said,
“Sometimes you think in order to act, sometimes you act in order to think.”
We will strive to think and act, and to enact an education doctorate that provides stewardship of the profession and meets the educational challenges we face every day.
Looking forward,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth C. Orozco Reilly
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