Transformational Leadership, Ed.D.

Responding to the needs of progressive educators looking to advance local educational transformation, Moravian University offers a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) Degree in Transformational Leadership to prepare scholar-practitioners to thrive in current educational contexts while reimagining and redesigning for a future of equitable, human-centered systems.

The 56-credit hybrid, cohort-based program welcomes curious and committed applicants into the learning community in these areas: PK-12 school leaders, PK-12 teacher leaders, higher education leaders, and chief learning officers in non-profit and for-profit organizations.

The program, including the action research-based Dissertation of Practice, is typically completed in 26 months. Throughout the program, learners intricately weave both scholarship and practice–learning is personalized, relevant and contextualized. The program begins with a two-week summer residency on the campus of Moravian University in historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For the remaining terms of year one, learning is conducted virtually, using both synchronous and asynchronous formats. Year two begins with another two-week residency with the remaining year two terms again conducted virtually. The program concludes with a final two-week summer residency and public exhibition with a focus on the Dissertation of Practice.

The Moravian University Doctor of Education program is built on a strong foundation of beliefs and values:

• Learning experiences, community, products and exhibitions are a fractal of the transformed world we seek to create.
• Learning experiences are co-directed with learners.
• All learning community members are considered leaders, teachers and learners; they design and lead for what the learning community needs, practicing deep democracy.
• The learning community lives with this paradox: the more complex a context/future possibility appears, the less traditional directional leadership it needs.
• The learning community prioritizes gifts/assets over deficits/problems.
• The learning community focuses on future possibilities, not current problems. Future possibilities are restorative, not retributive.
• The various paths to future possibilities are already in the community; the learning community creates the conditions for possibilities to emerge.
• Members of the learning community are active agents of inquiry and change. Visceral experiences lead to sustainable learning and outcomes (reframing mindsets and practice). This is learning in action.
• Location is a part of the learning experience (Lehigh Valley/Bethlehem) when on campus. The home base work learning environment serves as the learning context when off campus.
• Learning is open-walled; learning in practice is acknowledged.

Educational leadership programs are on the cusp of an evolution, and the Doctor of Education Program at Moravian University is uniquely designed to lead the field into a new era.

Culminating Dissertation of Practice Definition:

The Dissertation of Practice is a scholarly endeavor focused on a complex problem of practice with the potential to result in improved understanding, experience and outcomes in the student’s professional practice. The work begins with the student identifying an education-related problem along with its organizational and historical context. Using theory and evidence to ask the most relevant questions, students will diagnose, research potential solutions, and develop recommendations to address the problem of practice. Since the Dissertation of Practice is grounded in action research, the student will engage in numerous iterative cycles of inquiry, interventions, data gathering and analysis to best address the problem of practice.

The Dissertation of Practice will culminate in a written document, structured similarly to the traditional dissertation, that reports on the extended research journey. The document will be stored on Moravian University’s library similar to the way our M.Ed. students upload and store their master’s thesis.

• The work includes a problem statement and framing of the approach, which establishes the rationale and significance of the work.
• The current literature is used as a foundation for the work and approach at key points: framing the problem, synthesizing what is known about the problem, and informing the solutions and implications of the work.
• The work is systematic and represents significant effort.
• The product represents a contribution to transformational leadership practice.
• The product and process serve as an opportunity for the student to demonstrate the ability to apply theory and research to solving or informing an educational problem.
• The work demonstrates the ability to present ideas and arguments and evidence in a logical, systematic, and coherent fashion in both written and oral formats.