Leadership and Innovation

February 16, 1995

Our faculty are leaders at the campus, state, national, and international levels. Significantly, the Department is the home of three of the most important journals in the field of philosophical and social foundations, Educational Theory, the Journal of Aesthetic Education and Philosophy of Education (the Proceedings of the philosophy of education society). This affords us the opportunity to play a critical role in shaping the broad intellectual debates in the field. William Trent is Deputy Editor of The Sociological Quarterly. Further, in recent years EPS faculty have served on the editorial boards of the following journals: Gender and Society, Theory and Society, Educational Studies, History of Education Quarterly, American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Negro Education, Informal Logic, Sage, Educational Foundations, The Australian Journal of Teacher Education and Humanization of Education (Korolenko, Russia). As mentioned earlier in this document, members of the EPS faculty have been elected to the presidency of the major scholarly societies in the field. Two members have served as president of the Philosophy of Education Society, two as president of the History of Education Society, and one as president of the American Educational Studies Association. Through journal editorships and offices held in professional organizations EPS faculty have been among the key national leaders in philosophical and social foundations. This leadership role expands significantly when one adds to it the leadership in the field exerted by graduates of this Department. As shown in Appendix I, we have placed the vast majority of our graduates in teaching and research positions in institutions of higher education throughout the nation and the world. They are very active in professional organizations and the reputation of this Department is enhanced by their participation and leadership.

The Department has been at the forefront of critical changes within the College and the Campus. In the past three years we have reorganized the content of most of our courses, created new courses and changed the course credit on all of our 300 level courses. All of the masters and doctoral courses in philosophy of education have undergone substantial revision and approved by the graduate college. We have created new courses in the areas of family and ethnicity, race and cultural diversity, ethics, gender, and western educational thought. EPS 210 has been revised making much more effective use of computers and coordinated visual images. The Department has just forwarded a proposal to the Educational Technologies Board seeking funds for a project aimed at incorporating new technology into 201. Delivery of instruction will be expanded by the creation of multimedia courseware. Multimedia presentations to accompany the lecture portions of the course will be developed. Delivery of instruction will be enhanced further by the development of on-line resources for students. Faculty and teaching assistants will develop an EPS 201 Internet Gopher site (within the College of Education's Gopher site) for students to access. This site will include copies of lecture notes and graphics, copies of materials related to class topics, and sample test questions. These are some examples of the Department's leadership in program and curriculum innovation.