Touro Offers Doctoral Program For Educators
Ed.D. in Leading Innovative Diverse Organizations for current school leaders, educators, and those looking to ascend
The Doctor is in for TUC Graduate School of Education! At Touro University California, the answer is now a resounding yes. TUC’s Graduate School of Education recently announced it will begin offering a unique Doctoral-level degree beginning this summer. The new Ed.D. is being introduced as Leading Innovative Diverse Organizations or LIDO and the title encompasses the overall mission of the program.
The LIDO doctorate is designed to appeal to current school leaders, educators, and those looking to ascend to leadership roles in organizations of any kind. “The challenges of leading an organization to develop policies and practices that embrace the diversity in our workforce and communities drove the development of the program. However, we also want help build leaders who can innovatively prepare for the future and respond to the next disruption – whether it be a pandemic or a new technological advancement,” said Dr. Pamela Redmond who oversees the Ed.D. program at TUC.
The curriculum goes beyond education to leadership issues at large. According to Dr. Redmond, “Social justice and diversity policies are essential at organizations everywhere not just in the business of education. They play out in the health fields, Silicon Valley industries and even in big businesses.” The program already has three-times the number of interested students than the program can accommodate, and she’s working on finding new faculty for future semesters.
A unique feature of the program design is how it approaches dissertation writing. “A dissertation is a rigorous writing process – especially when it is left to the end of a program. We incorporate activities that support writing the dissertation from the beginning of the program and provide intensive advising to assist students as they progress,” stated Dr. Redmond. “We want to keep classes small, highly individualized, and give students the personal attention they need to finish on time.”
The spark for the idea behind developing the Ed.D. came from examining Touro’s surrounding region. While the Bay Area is a hub of technology and innovation, it is also vastly diverse in terms of demographics and the communities served.
“Together with our sister campus in Nevada, who first developed an Ed.D. program, we will be co-teaching core curriculum that applies to both doctoral programs collaboratively. The LIDO emphasis courses will be taught solely by our California campus faculty,” stated Dr. Redmond. This innovative approach was inspired by the Touro University System strategic plan “30/30” that set a goal to have campuses work together to cross-list curriculum and programs.
Improving access to leadership training through innovation is a pathway to a bigger goal for GSOE. “We believe that we can leverage programs like this to create a more just society,” she said. “For too many organizations, teachers and administrators don’t look like the communities they serve, so we knew we wanted to recruit a more diverse group of leaders who can be innovative in creating solutions to challenges in their field,” Dr. Redmond said.