College of Education Announces Changes to Doctoral Program

SEATTLE, WA – Seattle University’s prestigious doctorate in Educational Leadership, housed in the College of Education, has announced program changes to better serve leaders across industries. With these changes, the program will now be referred to as a Doctorate in Educational and Organizational Learning and Leadership, effective immediately. 

The program, founded by the late Dr. John Morford, meets the needs of a very broad spectrum of leaders whose current or future careers include educational, business, organizational, or community leadership. Interim Dean, Dr. Paulette Kidder, stated “The College of Education is excited to offer our outstanding doctoral program under this new name. The program's name now conveys the broad appeal of this doctorate to professionals across a wide spectrum of fields.”

Over the years, in large part thanks to Dr. Morford, the program has attracted a diverse group of students with respect to gender, age, culture, race/ethnicity, ability, and employment identity. As a member of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, the program is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice.

With continued recognition of the complexity of leadership education in today’s world, the College of Education has been approved to make the following changes to the Educational Leadership doctoral program, beginning in Fall 2020:

• Elimination of the twenty-four concentration credits; and
• Change of the Program Name to Education and Organizational Learning and Leadership (EOLL).

Changing the program name has been a strategy developed by the Educational Leadership marketing team over the past two years. The team has implemented a revised marketing plan aimed at a larger range of specific groups, including educational, nonprofit, and governmental entities. The new program name more clearly identifies the program as one of value to these types of prospective students.