Thought Leadership in Educational Leadership Studies

Our Educational Leadership Studies programs ready educators for sustained, high-impact leadership in today’s schools, districts, postsecondary institutions, and other educational settings. We set the stage for teachers, principals, superintendents, higher education administrators, and other education leaders to reimagine teaching and learning to improve student outcomes and build high-performing education systems.

NCE would like to feature a few faculty members who have recently been recognized for their thought leadership in the field: 

• Gloria McDaniel Hall has been busy working towards equity! She came up with the idea for our recently published NLU “Real Talk: Making Equity Actionable” YouTube series. In this series, Educational Leadership faculty (including Gloria, Elizabeth Minor, and Christine Nelson) interviewed NCE alumni on the ways they are putting equity into action. She also produces her own podcast that covers resources for urban educators, administrators, and parents and was a co-author of NCE's Lessons Learned in Leading for Equity Resource Guide (along with Sophie Degener, Ryan McCarty, and Sophie Amado). In the spring, Gloria published the children’s book Gloria Finds Her Voice, and was profiled for this in her neighborhood’s newspaper. 
• James Fitzpatrick's book Beyond Theories and Degrees: The Alley Smarts of Educational Leadership has been recognized and utilized in other educational institutions, including the University of Wisconsin Madison, James’ alma mater. The forward of the book was written by former governor of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle, and, aims to “implore readers to reflect upon their own journeys as educators in considering the next steps in their careers. Too often passionate and caring educators disqualify themselves in advancing to the leadership ranks where undoubtedly they could have flourished!” 
• Carlos Azcotia has been interviewed four times recently by Univision Chicago on subjects such as ISBE’s changes to student assessments in schools, teacher shortages, and student safety. Most recently, he was interviewed about the importance of establishing a routine at the start of school so that children can adjust to the new academic year schedule. 

• Angela Elkordy has been busy with several academic presentations and thought leadership opportunities. She presented "Actionable Knowledge: Educators' Beliefs, Practices, and the Science of Learning" and “Teaching, Learning, and Changing: Instructional Practices in K-21 Contexts in the Post COVID-Era” (with colleagues Jack Denny, Donna Wakefield, and Ayn Keneman) at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She presented "AI for Everyone," a 90-minute workshop preparing educators to participate in the Day of AI for the Islamic Schools League of America. 

  At the ISTELive22, she (and colleagues Jack Denny, Ayn KEneman, and Donna Wakefield) presented "Resilience, Change, and Instructional technologies: Preparing Preservice Teachers During COVID" and she presented "Thinking by Design: Framing Thought with Cognitive Tools and Strategies." Angela delivered the presentation titled "STEAM in a Global K-12 Educational System'' at the BalancED-FAU International Education Conference in collaboration with the International Council of Professors of Educational Leadership (ICPEL). Finally, she and Ayn Keneman created a book club supported by the Illinois Digital Educators Alliance (IDEA) for their book Design Ed: Connecting Learning Science Research to Practice. Participants (teachers and technology specialists across the Chicagoland area) in the book study met weekly during July to respond to prompts from the book and design their own ideas surrounding the question, "What is learning?"

Additionally, we have some exciting news in our Educational Leadership program areas: this fall, we are launching the Strategic Educational Leadership major!

This major is offered to attract those who seek professional development and leadership credentialing in organizations whose missions include teaching-and-learning, training, curriculum-and-instructional design, and other education-related functions. The Strategic Educational Leadership curriculum complements NLU’s Educational Leadership offerings that target preparation for specific external credentials and leadership jobs in schools and universities. The SEDL program serves aspiring leaders with interests broader than specific professional licenses for school principals or district superintendents. This major augments existing NCE graduate programs in Educational Leadership (focused on PreK-12 school-level and district-level leadership) and Higher Education Leadership (focused on leadership in colleges and universities) in that it builds upon existing programs by sharing content courses that support and extend educational leadership into wide-ranging fields.