Connecting to the Community — Colleen MacKinnon (UVM)

Key ideas:

• Use of Advisory Board
• Opportunities in fact that EdD candidates tend to be local (versus PhD candidates)
• Use of incentives and rewards for faculty and participating partners
• Use alumni strategically
• Tell stories of EdD projects

NOTES: Advisory Committee/Board Roles

• Superintendents
• Part of business community
• Larger roll-out event — present to the community
• Demonstrate to community that program participants are making a difference
• Need ability to walk into schools and get into data, advisory board members might be able to provide access to data
• Marketing purposes — faculty not sitting in ivory towers disconnected from field
• Use small grants to interact with advisory board members
• Advisory Board might provide suggestions for problems. Program can identify problems that have a workable solution.
• CSU — legislated Advisory Board (18 members)
• Collaborative relationship with program faculty

How do we let neighbors know what we do?

• e.g., Sunday morning television programs
• have mayor come in and do orientation to give window into community
• applicants must to 12 minute presentations
• public education business literacy grants provide connections to multiple fields
• use business/marketing majors to help with “advertising”

How can we sustain relationships over time?

• First need to identify what is special about EdD program
• Problem of localization, at some point might reach saturation
• Look into specialized cohorts to provide program flexibility and adaptability
• Must be engine for change, serving community (branding program), must be relevant
• Community is what is going to sustain program
• Monographs to distribute to community at large
• Call for focus group to review, edit monograph — use prestige as reward
• Food
• Participants must feel that they are making a contribution
• Professional development at local schools. When a student can report on a lab of practice, this helps with confidence.
• Make sure stories are told, e.g., blog

Events

• Orientation
• Ropes course for all participants
• Peer mentoring, 1-year behind
• Alumni association —
• “Top Doc” award for established graduate
• alumni retreats with faculty, alumni give scholarships to students

Use of technologies and other disciplines such as business to help to tell the stories

• Consider use of Twitter, Facebook
• Need help from other disciplines such as graphic designers, marketing majors, etc.
• grad students dedicated to marketing, business savvy,
• hire intern out of business,
• use intro to meriting classes for specific projects

Role of incentives and rewards — this is a problem because many are not doing it

Effective Change Strategies — Sharon Ryan, Rutgers

1. Garner resources upfront
   1. Identify funding opportunities
   2. Use money to get extra people to do work
2. Supportive leadership
   1. Know what your dean will and will not support
   2. Provide a plan of action and what you’ll need
3. Need a point person —framework of committees
4. Communicate, communicate at all levels
5. Use a stealth approach
   1. Know your bottom line
   2. Know/use some existing things/adjust
   3. Use current governance structures
6. Differentiate between conceptual, developmental, and implantation
7. Try and build in time for faculty work together
   1. Incentives
8. Don’t goal set too much

Inquiry — Charol Shakeshaft, VCU

Differentiating EdD — Honorine Nocon, UCD

Quality & Impact — Joan Bissel, CSU

1. Redefine and focus on excellence
2. Used Flexner Report and transformation of medical education as our model
3. Examine preparation of practitioners having broadly based skills and expertise as specialists
4. Framed excellence in relation to new models of leadership at the school site (teams).
5. Focused on the role of clinical experts and the definition of clinical faculty in the academy
6. Reconceptuallize the location (site) of programs into communities with co-location at the university and at the school
7. Proposed co-leadership model with particular lens available for decision-making (ie: instructional leaders, equity, technology, etc)

Alternative Capstone — Robert Rueda, USC

Dimensions

Issues:

• amount of time
• group dynamics
• IRB issues
• Power issues in own setting
• Title -> dissertation vs. ?
• Rubrics/criteria to evaluate
• Status within university and outside
• Behavior, knowledge, stances—we want to capture all three
• High risk when addressing real problems of practice