College of Education Joins CPED

Seattle University College of Education will join the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED), a Consortium of more than 80 colleges and schools of education working together to redesign all aspects of the professional practice doctorate in education known as the Ed.D.

Universities must apply and be admitted into the Carnegie Project. Key to project success is the willingness of higher education members to share work and to change and improve their doctoral programs, says Kristina Hesbol, membership chair for CPED.

CPED’s mission is to improve the efficacy and reliability of the professional doctorate in education so that it is the degree of choice for preparing the next generation of educators and leaders. Member institutions commit their resources to work together and critically examine all aspects of their doctorate in education programs through dialog, experimentation, critical feedback and evaluation.

The College of Education embarked on that process five years ago, restructuring its Educational Leadership (EDLR) program and changing its areas of concentration to better align with specific professional areas such as superintendent, principal, program administrators, and adult, post-secondary and higher education. New collaborations with other colleges at SU are expanding specialty areas to the fields of theology, nonprofit administration and nursing leadership.

Both CPED and the College of Education will benefit from this collaboration, said Tana Hasart, EDLR consultant and visiting professor. “We can contribute to CPED’s work through our existing EDLR program evaluation and implementation of best practices, and we will be able to take advantage of all the research and information CPED has collected,” Dr. Hasart said.

Seattle University joins two other Northwest region universities, Montana State University and Brigham Young University, in the third cohort of new members in the international Consortium. A CPED_press_release issued March 24 lists all new members of CPED.